Annuals, perennials, or subshrubs. Stems usually erect, usually branched. Leaves petiolate or sessile; leaf blade entire to pinnatifid, sometimes semisucculent. Capitula terminal or axillary, solitary, radiate or discoid; involucre hemispheric to broadly hemispheric; phyllaries persistent, in 2 or 3 or more series, subequal, herbaceous or papery; receptacle convex to hemispheric, densely setose. Ray florets usually neuter, rarely female and fertile or styliferous and sterile; corolla yellow to white or orange to red, purplish, or brown, often bicolored. Disc florets bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow or orange to red, purplish, or brown; tube much shorter than throat; throat ampliate, campanulate to cylindric, or urceolate; lobes 5, broadly deltate or ovate. Achenes obpyramidal to clavate, sparsely to densely hairy; pappus usually persistent, of 6-12 medially thickened, laterally scarious scales in 1 or 2 series, rarely of linear scales with erose margins.

See Biddulph, Res. Stud. State Coll. Washington 12: 195-256. 1944.

Gaillardia amblyodon J. Gay and G. aristata Pursh are cultivated in China.

Twenty species: North and South America; one species (introduced) in China.