Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Pubescent, sometimes viscid annual or perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems often swollen at the nodes.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Base leaf bases often connate around the stem. Margins entire. Petiolate (basal leaves) or sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal, dichotomous cymes or clusters, or solitary in the leaf axils. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or unisexual (and then plants usually dioecious), actinomorphic. Calyx of (4)5 sepals; sepals distinct, nearly distinct, or connate into a conspicuous tube. Petals as many as sepals, 2–cleft, or sometimes absent; notched, cleft, or sometimes fibriate or divided, sometimes sharply differentiated into an expanded part and a basal claw, then often with 2 small outgrowths present at the juncture of the limb and claw. Stamens 5–10, rarely fewer, distinct or adnate to petals at base to form a short tube, which may be adnate to the gynophore or sometimes adnate to lower part of calyx, petaloid staminodes sometimes present; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior; stigmas (3–)5(–6), subterminal to linear along adaxial surface of styles.

Fruit: Capsules cylindrical; often curved; dehiscent at apex by twice as many teeth as styles. Seeds numerous; globose or reniform; perisperm starchy; hard or rarely soft; true endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: