Erect herbs, viscid, by longitudinal rows of minute, sessile glands and capitate-glandular hairs. Leaves linear to filiform, involute-coiled in vernation, exstipulate, spirally arranged. Flowers axillary, solitary, without bracteoles, 5-merous. Sepals imbricate, persistent, short-connate at the base. Petals larger than sepals, contorted, with a broad, dentate apex and cuneate base, oblique, ± connate at the very base. Stamens 5, sometimes unequal; anthers basifixed, alternipetalous, cells opening with a very short pore-like slit. Disk none. Ovary superior, 2-celled, with ∞ ovules attached to the axis of the dissepiment about the middle; integument 1; style 1, simple, with a faintly 2-lobed stigma. Capsule ± compressed, 2-celled, loculicid with 2 valves, sometimes the valves later splitting, the dissepiment splitting ± halfway. Seeds dark, rugose; embryo elongate, cylindric; cotyledons short, fleshy; albumen present.
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