Subshrubs or shrubs, sometimes root-suckering, glabrate to densely hairy, hairs various, simple or bifurcate, simple-glandular, and stellate, ca. 6–30-armed. Stems erect or ascending, ultimate branches strict to diffuse. Leaves: stipules ± persistent, filiform to subulate; blade ovate to round, rhombic, or reniform, unlobed or palmately 3-, 5-, or 7-lobed, base cordate to truncate or cuneate, margins usually toothed. Inflorescences usually axillary, rarely terminal, flowers solitary or in clusters in dense to open heads, spikes, racemes, or panicles; involucellar bractlets persistent, 3, distinct (basally connate in M. aboriginum). Flowers: calyx not accrescent, not inflated, lobes triangular to ovate, not ribbed; corolla exceeding calyx, campanulate to subrotate, usually rose to pale pink, pinkish mauve, or mauve, rarely white; staminal column ± included; filaments terminal and subterminal; ovary 7–14-carpellate; ovules 1 per cell; styles 7–14-branched, (branches equal in number to carpels); stigmas capitate. Fruits schizocarps, erect, not inflated, disclike, subglobose-obovate in lateral view, not indurate, fragile, apically minutely stellate-hairy; mericarps 7–14, drying tan, 1-celled, asymmetrically suborbicular to obovoid-reniform, smooth-walled, without dorsal spur, apex muticous, dehiscence loculicidal, walls falling away as 2 fragile valves. Seeds 1 per mericarp, ascending, brown or black, obovoid-reniform, usually papillate-stellate or minutely stellate-hairy or rarely glabrous. x = 17.
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