[2] These plants are vines, shrubs or small trees with thin to leathery, hairless of felty haired leaves with leaf stalks and entire margins, set alternately or rarely oppositely along the branches.

The flower heads are at the tip of the branches or rarely in the axils of the leaves, on their own or in open to tightly packed cymes.

The involucre may be narrowly cylindrical to half globular, and consists of at least three whorls of overlapping and gradually changing bracts.

The corolla can be yellow, orange, red, white, pink or purple.

The one-seeded indehiscent fruits (called cypselas) are cylindrical and carry a pappus of many white, straw-colored or bright orange or pink bristles (which may be feather-like).