Annuals or perennials, 2-50+ cm (perennials with ± branched, woody caudices).
Stems 1-60, erect or ± decumbent, unbranched or sparingly branched distally.
Leaves all basal, or basal-proximal, or basal and cauline; alternate; petiolate or sessile; blades (usually with distinct midribs) mostly oblanceolate to linear or filiform, sometimes lobed, ultimate margins usually entire, sometimes toothed, faces glabrous or ± hairy, eglandular or ± gland-dotted.
Heads radiate or discoid, borne singly or in paniculiform to corymbiform or fastigiate arrays.
Involucres hemispheric to campanulate 6-20 mm diam.
Phyllaries 11-60+ in 3 series (mostly spreading to erect in fruit, distinct, herbaceous; outer with or without scarious margins, abaxial faces ± hairy; mid usually same number as, alternating with, and similar to outer, almost always with ± scarious margins; inner narrower than others, margins scarious).
Receptacles hemispheric to conic, shallowly pitted or smooth, epaleate.
Ray florets 0 or 7-27, pistillate, fertile; corollas (usually marcescent) yellow (laminae fan-shaped to oblanceolate, usually 3-lobed).
Disc florets 20-250+, bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow proximally, yellow or purplish distally, tubes shorter than cylindric to cylindro-campanulate throats, lobes 5, ± deltate.
Cypselae ± obpyramidal, moderately to densely hairy;
pappi persistent, of 4-8 usually aristate, scales.
x = 15. Here, strigoso-canescent refers to often silvery induments (hairs tightly appressed, relatively short, 1-1.5 mm) of
Tetraneuris argentea and
T. acaulis var.
acaulis. Such induments contrast with lanuginose or sericeous induments (hairs spreading, ca 1.5-3 mm) in other taxa, including
T. ivesiana and the other three varieties of
T. acaulis.