Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Diminutive annual herbs (in africa also perennial herbs or shrubs).

Stems: Stems many-branched.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple or sometimes compound. Opposite. Base leaves connate at base into a shallow cup around the stem. Surfaces often with a waxy bloom; Blades often fleshy. Margins entire. Veins not conspicuous. Sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in cymes or sometimes solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect), minute, axillary, erect, 3–4(–5)-merous. Calyx (3)4(5)-lobed. Corolla of (3)4(5) petals (equal in number to sepals), distinct or connate at base. Stamens as many as and alternate with the petals, in 2 whorls; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior or partly inferior, 3–5, distinct, carpels as many as sepals, distinct or connate at base, rarely connate to middle, each carpel with a scale-like nectary at base, placentation marginal or axile; ovules numerous, occasionally 1 to few per carpel, anatropous; style 1, short, subulate.

Fruit: Follicles. Seeds minute; 1–12 per follicle; endosperm scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: