Description: Annual biennial or perennial herbs.
Leaves mainly cauline, alternate, sessile, entire; both surfaces woolly or upper surface glandular lower surface and woolly.
Heads terminal, densely clustered, without rays, spherical to spreading at maturity; involucral bracts 3- or 4-seriate, scarious, the outer broad and sessile, the inner narrow and with basal claws; receptacle convex, smooth or honeycombed, naked. Outer florets filiform or narrow-tubular, female, fertile. Inner florets tubular, bisexual, 4- or 5-merous. Style branches truncate and brush-like. Anthers tailed at the base, with short obtuse or subacute terminal appendages.
Achenes terete, papillose; pappus of free barbellate bristles, not persistent.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 50–60 spp., cosmop. Aust.: 1 sp. (endemic).
Text by J. Everett
Taxon concept:
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