Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Succulent herbs, rarely somewhat woody.

Stems: Stems erect to prostrate.

Roots: Roots fibrous sometimes tuberous.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite or alternate. Blades ± succulent. Surfaces glabrous or pubescent with bladder-like hairs. Margins entire or occasionally toothed. Petiolate or sessile. Stipules absent, rarely present in some taxa.

Flowers: Flowers in axillary, few–flowered cymes or solitary in the leaf axils. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or sometimes unisexual, actinomorphic. Calyx of (3–)5(–8) sepals; sepals fleshy ± connate below. Corolla (petals) absent, but often with numerous linear "petals" derived from staminodes attached to the hypanthium or the summit of the ovary. Stamens (1–)4–5 or 8–10(to numerous), attachment same as staminodes. Ovary superior to inferior, 2–8(–numerous)-carpellate, usually with as many cells, rarely 1-celled; ovule placentation axile, basal, apical, or parietal.

Fruit: Capsules with circumscissile; loculicidal; or septicidal dehiscence or indehiscient and nutlike. Seeds 1 to numerous per cell; perisperm oily; starchy; or proteinaceous; true endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

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