  Hipparcos data has allowed the identification of a large number of clump
stars in the Solar Neighbourhood. We discuss our present knowledge about their
distributions of masses, ages, colours, magnitudes, and metallicities. We point
out that the age distribution of clump stars is ``biased'' towards
intermediate-ages. Therefore, the metallicity information they contain is
different from that provided by the local G dwarfs. Since accurate abundance
determinations are about to become available, these may provide useful
constraints to chemical evolution models of the local disc.
