Launaea

Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, glabrous, with milky latex. Stems erect or prostrate, simple or branched. Leaves mostly in rosettes, sinuate, coarsely toothed or pinnatifid. Capitula ligulate, few- to several-flowered, pedunculate or occasionally sessile, solitary or in lax, irregular corymbs, or clustered. Involucres campanulate or cylindrical; bracts in 2 to several rows, becoming +/- swollen and corky towards base, innermost subequal, usually exceeding outer. Receptacle epaleate. Florets bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, strap-shaped; tube slender, cylindric; ligule short, 4- or 5-toothed. Anthers sagittate at base, auricles acute or shortly setaceous-acuminate; with lanceolate, apical appendage. Style linear, terete, and pubescent above, with linear, obtuse or subobtuse branches, sweeping hairs long. Cypselas usually ellipsoid-fusiform or terete, often somewhat compressed, ribbed, sometimes apically attenuate or beaked, rugose or verrucose, rough or smooth. Pappus of bristles in many rows, or of bristles intermixed with many down-like hairs. x = 9 (4, 6, 7, 8, 13) (polyploidy, B-chromosomes).