Description :

• Herbs, subshrubs or shrubs
• Leaves generally opposite, at least below, sometimes alternate throughout or rosulate, entire or serrate-dentate to pinnatisect or lobed, often trinerved
• Capitula radiate or discoid, rarely disciform, solitary or corymbose-paniculate
• Involucral bracts generally in 1 or 2, sometimes 3, rarely 4 rows, generally herbaceous, occasionally scarious, sometimes partly or wholly connate
• Receptacle generally epaleate
• Ray florets female, rarely female-sterile or neuter, mostly yellow or white, sometimes violet, pink, reddish, orange, purplish, brownish or greenish
• Disc florets bisexual, rarely functionally male, generally with narrow tube and expanding limb, sometimes funnel-shaped, generally 5-lobed or sometimes 4-lobed, generally yellow, rarely white, pink, violet, purple, orange or greenish
• Anthers generally shortly calcarate or sometimes distinctly ecalcarate, usually ecaudate, rarely caudate; appical appendage generally ovate to cordate, rarely narrowly oblong, sometimes glandular; endothecial tissue polarised, rarely radial; filament collar sometimes broadened towards base, dilated
• Style with oblong-linear style branches generally with sterile appendages of ± fused hairs, or sometimes truncate and apically penicillate; hairs obtuse; stigmatic areas in 2 separate lines
• Cypselas brown to blackish, with or without striations, usually with short to long twin hairs; ray cypselas generally triquetrous, sometimes partly or wholly enclosed by subtending involucral bracts; disc cypselas generally terete or prismatic
• Pappus generally of scales with or without extended bristle-like midrib, entire or sometimes dissected, sometimes of barbellate or plumose bristles; sometimes 0

Nomenclature:

• Helenieae
  • Lindley: 1074 (1829)
  • Bentham: 199 (1873)
  • Karis & Ryding: 533 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Genera 110, North, Central and South America, more rarely in tropical Africa and Asia, Eurasia, Hawaiian Islands, 1 species native to Australia
• Southern Africa : Genera 5, species 5, mostly naturalised weeds

References:

• BENTHAM, G. 1873. Compositae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera Plantarum 2. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• HILLIARD, O.M. 1977. Compositae in Natal . University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
• KARIS, P.O. & RYDING, O. 1994. Tribes Helenieae and Heliantheae . In K. Bremer, Asteraceae , cladistics and classification . Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
• LINDLEY, J. 1829. In J.C. Loudon. An encyclopaedia of plants . Longman et al., London

Resources:

• Key to Asteraceae tribes
• Key to Helenieae genera

• Helenieae genera: