Filago

Annual herbs, greyish-cottony. Leaves entire, sessile, alternate. Capitula heterogamous, disciform, in dense, globose clusters and surrounded by a ray of leaves; capitular bracts c. 5-seriate, the middle and outermost bracts with a prominent midrib, and stiff, somewhat cartilaginous, awn-like apices, innermost bracts mainly scarious-hyaline except for midrib and lacking the awn-like apices; receptacle conical, ebracteate. Outer florets filiform, female; inner florets bisexual, 4-lobed; stamens 4, anthers tailed; style branches with a prolonged sterile appendage. Cypselas homomorphic, with sparse, mucilage-producing papillae; pappus of bisexual florets with free, scabrous bristles, ciliate at base, pappus absent from female florets.