Description: Annual or perennial herbs, forming rosettes or with short prostrate to ascending stems, white-tomentose.
Leaves basal and cauline, alternate, pinnatisect to entire.
Heads ± hemispherical, solitary, pedunculate; involucral bracts several-seriate, unequal, inner with broad scarious tips; receptacle flat or slightly convex, naked, pitted. Ray florets in 1 row, female, fertile, ligulate; disc florets tubular, 5-lobed, bisexual, fertile. Anthers obtuse to sagittate at base, apical appendages ovate. Style branches fused, sometimes bifid, obtuse, smooth or papillose.
Achenes asymmetrically obovoid, ± winged and deeply grooved on inner face, ribbed and tubercled on the outer; pappus of small or delicate scales in 2 rows, or absent.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 50 species, mostly southern Africa. Australia: 1 species (naturalized).
Text by L. Murray
Taxon concept:
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