Annual or perennial, diffuse herb, often glabrous, puberulous or scabrid; radical leaves alternate, crowded, lower petiolate, lyrate, entire, sinuate, glabrous; upper cauline leaves smaller, lanceaolate or auriculate, amplexicaul; heads ueceolate on very long peduncles, solitary or combined into corymbs, without bracteoles at the base, homogamous, discoid, yellow, purple or red; flowers bisexual, fertile, tubular, limbs elongated, 5-toothed; receptacle flat, naked; involucral bracts 1-seriate, free or more or less connate, striate, glabrous almost equaling the florets; bracts, linear-oblong, acute with scarious margins; stamen-5, epipetalous, syngenecious, anthers obtuse below, prolonged above the style arms, glabrous; ovary-1 celled, 1-ovuled, solitary, basal, obtuse, style arms cylindric, subterete or angled, tip conic; stigma bifid; achenes 3-4 mm long with 5-ribbed, scabrid, hairy alternating with faint, glabrous ribs; pappus white, soft and slender.