Description:

• Erect, branched, annual herbs, softly pubescent
• Leaves alternate, usually sessile, oblong or spathulate, margins entire, toothed or lobed
• Capitula radiate; several-flowered, usually solitary on long, nude peduncles, terminating branches
• Involucre broad; bracts in 2 or 3 rows, usually becoming reflexed
• Receptacle globose or reflexed
• Ray florets neuter, rarely female and fertile; corolla yellow or crimson, often bicoloured, strap-shaped, rarely irregularly enlarged
• Disc florets bisexual; corolla yellow or purplish, tubular below, campanulate above, 5-toothed
• Anthers with bases eared or minutely sagittate; apical appendage acuminate
• Style linear, truncate, penicillate; usually with long or short, hairy, subulate appendage
• Cypselas obpyramidal, 4- or 5-angled, often ribbed
• Pappus of 5, awned scales
• x = 17 (9, 19) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Gaillardia Foug.
  • Fougeroux: 55 (1788)
  • Hilliard: 327 (1977)
  • Karis & Ryding: 552 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 28, North and South America
• Southern Africa: Species 1: *Gaillardia pulchella Foug., naturalised in parts, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, also known from North-West, Free State and Eastern Cape