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Perennial spiny herbs. Leaves alternate, sessile, often dissected; leaves near the base of the stem larger and wider than those nearer the synflorescences. Capitula with a single floret; many capitula packed into dense synflorescences, these terminal and globose or ellipsoid, subtended by few bracts; capitula with or without basal setae; phyllaries 3–5-seriate, the outer free, the inner connate at the base, the outermost smallest and often spatulate with a laciniate apex, the inner more lanceolate. Corolla white, red or blue, tube cylindric with campanulate distal part, lobes long and linear.. Anthers long-exserted and with hairy tails.. Style branches often hairy. Achenes ascending-pilose; pappus of short scales.
