Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems often swollen at the nodes.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite or rarely alternate. Blades usually linear to oblong. Base leaf bases often connate around the stem. Margins entire. Veins parallel. Petioles absent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in crowded terminal cymes or solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, distinctly 5–15–nerved or striate, commissures scarious; sepals distinct, nearly distinct, or connate into a conspicuous tube. Corolla of 5 petals, ± clawed, without coronal scales; 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 10, 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.

Fruit: Capsules dehiscing at apex by 4 teeth. Seeds 1–12; subglobose; with a linear hilum extending to ½ the circumference of the seed or more.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: