Shrubs or perennial or annual herbs. Vegetative parts often aromatic. Leaves simple, cauline, alternate, sessile, with bases decurrent, stem-clasping or attenuate, pilose to glabrescent, often glandular. Capitula corymbose to solitary, heterogamous, radiate to disciform, sessile to pedunculate, with 15–100 (–190) florets; involucral bracts numerous, in several series, subequal, rigid; outermost bracts herbaceous; innermost scarious, persistent, recurved on drying, never wholly reflexed; receptacle flat, epaleate, glabrous or pilose, sometimes glandular. Florets all fertile; corolla pink to purple. Marginal florets female, in several series; corolla ligulate, filiform or variously lobed. Disc florets bisexual, usually fewer than marginal ones; corolla 5-or 4-lobed; stigmatic branches short, strongly papillate distally; anthers tailed. Achenes terete, often with superficial ribs; carpopodium pale, annular. Pappus setae numerous, in 1–3 series, about as long as corolla, connate at base, plumose-setose, persistent.
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