Plants usually perennial or annual herbs, sometimes shrublets. Leaves alternate, often hairy. Inflorescences terminal corymbs or of solitary capitula. Capitula disciform; receptacles flat, usually without bracts; phyllaries in several to many series, papery, brown, yellow, pink, or white; outer flowers female, yellow, filiform, in 1-severak rows, their corollas 3-4-lobed; inner flowers usually more number than the outer, bisexual, their corollas yello, 5-lobed, lobes erecet; anthers tailed and with flat apical appendages; styles with truncate branches. Achenes small, oblong; pappuses of 1-series of barbellate to subplumose bristles, bristles freel or basally slightly connate, ciliate, rapidly falling in groups or individually.
Helichrysum includes about 600 species. Most are native to Africa, primarily southern Africa, but several are native in Asia and Europe.