Description: Annual herbs.
Leaves alternate, cauline, simple, semiterete.
Heads solitary, terminal. Heads cup-shaped to turbinate; involucral bracts multiseriate, glossy, glabrous or sparsely woolly, the claws always scarious, the inner with white or coloured lamina; receptacle flat to conical, naked. Florets numerous, bisexual. Corollas tubular, expanded above, actinomorphic. Anthers tails filiform. Style branches rounded to broad-triangular.
Achenes oblong to obovoid, glabrous, smooth or papillose; pappus bristles filiform, plumose, united in a ring at base and caducous as a whole.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 10 species, endemic Australia. Australia: all States except N.T.
Text by Paul G. Wilson
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Involucral bracts with a radiating white or coloured lamina; Heads more than 3 mm long | 2 |
| Involucral bracts without a radiating white or coloured lamina; involucre less than 3 mm long | Hyalosperma demissum |
| 2 | Heads turbinate; pappus bristles united towards base; central leaves obtuse | Hyalosperma glutinosum |
| Heads hemispherical or cup-shaped; pappus bristles free
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Heads broadly cup-shaped; central leaves obtuse to acute; receptacle convex | Hyalosperma semisterile |
| Heads hemispherical (spreading from base); central leaves acuminate or flexuous; receptacle conical
Back to 2 | Hyalosperma praecox |
|
