The monospecific relic genus Warionia (Katinas & al. 2008) has been resolved as sister group to the Cichorieae in their traditional sense in all analyses available so far: Funk & al. (2004), based on trnL-F, ndhF and ITS data, forming a clade together with Gundelia; Goertzen & al. 2003: fig. 3, based on ITS data; Gemeinholzer & al. (in Kilian & al. 2009), based on ITS data; Fu & al. 2016, based on plastid DNA markers. Warionia is closer to the Cichorieae than to any other tribe of the Compositae according to molecular and morphological analyses (see also Cichorieae: Systematics) but it is so distinct from all other genera within the tribe that it has been placed in a subtribe of its own, the Warioniinae, by Gemeinholzer & Kilian (in Kilian & al. 2009).

Warionia is endemic to SE Morocco and NW Algeria, and characterised by a frutescent habit, latex, essential oils, the presence of both oil ducts and latex canals in the roots (Augier & Mérac 1951; Carlquist 1976: 481; Ramaut & al. 1985), homogamous capitula with often slightly zygomorphic 5-dentate, tubular, yellow flowers with 10 corolla bundles (Kilian & al. 2009), a pollen resembling the Serratula-type pollen present in the Cardueae (Katinas & al. 2008), densely pilose achenes with a pappus of coarse, scabrid bristles, and a strongly asymmetrical karyotype with a basic chromosome number of x = 17 (Oberprieler & Vogt 1993, Katinas & al. 2008).A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I