Lavenia Swartz.

Herbs, perennial. Leaf blade narrowly elliptic to broadly ovate or hastate, crenate to strongly serrate, acute to slightly acuminate. Synflorescence very laxly cymose. Phyllaries 10-30, 2-seriate, ± overlapping, somewhat fused at base, equal to subequal; receptacle covered with discrete oval deeply concave scars. Florets 10-60; corollas usually white, narrowly funnelform or with narrow basal tube and broadly campanulate limb, usually with hairs or glands on outer surface, hairs often moniliform; lobes 5, ca. 1.5 × longer than wide, not papillose; antheropodium usually strongly expanded below; anther appendages distinctly shorter than wide; style shaft with or without long hairs; style branches slightly to strongly clavate, often forming most showy part of head, fleshy, rounded apically, scarcely mammillate below. Achenes slightly curved, usually 3-angled without distinct ribs or 5-angled, often tuberculate; carpopodium forming a prominent asymmetrical knob; pappus usually of 3 or 5 terete clavate knobs, knobs with tips and upper outside surface covered with an elongated mass of viscid glands. x = 10.

About 26 species: pantropical; one species in China.