Annuals or perennials, 5-80 cm (usually fibrous-rooted, sometimes rhizomatous, usually stoloniferous). Stems usually 1, erect. Leaves basal and cauline (sometimes in rosettes); alternate; petiolate or sessile; blades oblanceolate, spatulate, lanceolate, or linear, bases cuneate or ampliate, margins entire (sometimes undulate and/or revolute), faces bicolor, abaxial usually silvery, tomentose, adaxial usually green, glabrate or glabrous. Heads disciform, usually in terminal clusters (subtended by leafy bracts, sometimes with axillary clusters), rarely borne singly. Involucres narrowly campanulate to cylindric, 3-5 mm. Phyllaries in 3-4+ series, mostly stramineous to brownish, sometimes purplish to pinkish (hyaline, stereomes not glandular), unequal, chartaceous toward tips. Receptacles flat, smooth, epaleate. Peripheral (pistillate) florets 16-150 (more numerous than bisexual); corollas purple or distally purplish. Inner (bisexual) florets 1-7; corollas purple or distally purplish. Cypselae obovoid-ellipsoid, slightly flattened, faces minutely hairy or papillate (papilliform hairs or papillae ± clavate, not myxogenic); pappi readily falling (singly or in groups), of 12-20, distinct or basally coherent, barbellate bristles in 1 series. x = 14.