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 Annual or less often perennial herbs. Leaves alternate, sometimes proximally opposite, subsessile (in ours), linear or lanceolate, glandular-punctate; indument of simple multicellular and globose glandular hairs. Capitula homogamous, small, in corymbose inflorescences, sometimes somewhat scorpioid simple or compound cymes; involucres short; phyllaries (2-)3-4-seriate, imbricate; receptacle flat, naked. Florets white, pink or purplish, much exserted from the involucre, tube with a short tubular proximal part, distally widening gradually or widening into a cylindric part, glandular, lobes 5; anthers with short basal auricles and a distal ovate-lanceolate appendage; style branches stout, subulate, hairy. Achenes more or less turbinate, especially the outer often curved and sometimes subcompressed, 2-6-angled and ribbed, glandular between the ribs, otherwise usually glabrous, truncate, crowned with an obscure to shortly tubular and irregularly toothed cartilaginous apical rim, cup or tubular cup contiguous with the ribs; pappus absent, or rarely a short corona.