Dipsacaceae

Non-woody (herbaceous) taprooted biennials or perennials with many individual flowers arranged in dense cyme- to spike-like heads that appear like a single flower, and have several bracts at their base. Unlike plants in the Aster Family, each individual flower having 4 lobes at the top of tube formed by joined petals, and 4 prominent separate stamens.

Flower heads at top of stem or ends of its branches; each head with several bracts immediately beneath it (involucrate), the bracts spine-tipped or not. Individual flowers blue to purple, or white, tubular, not stalked, each usually producing both pollen and seeds. Flowers all much the same (uniform, in Teasel), or those on the outside of the head larger and showier than those toward the centre (in Scabious). Each tubular flower may be overtopped by a long spine-tipped bract arising at its base (Teasel), or hairs, not bracts, may be present between the flowers. Sepals short, wholly fused and cuplike, or divided into 8 to 12 prominent but deciduous bristle-like teeth, or deeply cut into 4 lobes. Petals 4, fused, sometimes forming 2 lips. Stamens 4, separate, alternating with the petal lobes, their stalks attached to the petal tube. Carpels 2, fused; ovary located below the point of attachment of the other flower parts (inferior); style 1, undivided. Fruit a hairy achene.

Leaves usually opposite, the pair sometimes united with one another and cup-shaped at base, rarely whorled, variable in shape, ranging from simple to deeply lobed or compound, sometimes on the same plant, stalked or not. Stipules not present. Plants may produce a basal rosette of leaves the first year.

Stems upright, hairy, especially near base, or with broad-based prickles.