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Herbs [shrubs], annual or perennial, aquatic or terrestrial, not viviparous, 0.1-5 dm, glabrous [pubescent]. Stems erect, decumbent, or spreading, simple or branching, succulent. Leaves persistent or deciduous, cauline, opposite, sessile, connate basally; blade ovate, oblong, triangular to lanceolate or oblanceolate, or linear, laminar, 0.1-7 cm, fleshy, base not spurred, margins entire, with glands (hydathodes) in submarginal rows [scattered]; veins not conspicuous. Inflorescences thyrses or panicles [solitary flowers] in axils of leaves (flowers clustered when distal leaves smaller and crowded). Pedicels present. Flowers erect, 3-4(-5)-merous; sepals connate basally, all alike; petals spreading or recurved, distinct [connate], whitish; calyx and corolla not circumscissile in fruit; nectaries linear [various]; stamens as many as sepals; filaments free; pistils spreading to erect, distinct; ovary base rounded; styles 2+ times shorter than ovary. Fruits slightly recurved or ascending to erect. Seeds oblong or ellipsoid to reniform, ridged, sometimes also papillate. x = 8 (secondarily 7).
Annual or perennial herbs, subshrubs or shrubs. Lvs opposite, simple, entire or sometimes crenately toothed, usually spaced along stems, often decussate, sometimes subrosulate, connate at base or free, sometimes small and scale-like. Infl. terminal or axillary, of loose or compact cymes forming a corymb or thyrse, sometimes 1-few-flowered. Fls 4-5-(12)-merous, erect or spreading in bud. Sepals free or slightly connate at base, equal. Petals free or slightly connate at base, sometimes lower part fused to form a tube, fleshy, often spreading and corolla star-like, usually white, pink or red, rarely yellow. Stamens as many as petals, in 1 whorl, free or almost so, included or exserted. Scales free, very variable in shape. Carpels free, (4)-5-(12). Seeds usually numerous, occasionally 1-few.
Fls (3)4–5(–9)-merous; pet distinct or united only at base; stamens as many as and alternate with the pet, adnate to the base of the sep; carpels distinct or nearly so, the style short or even wanting, the stigma terminal; fr follicular; seeds (1–) several or many; succulent herbs or shrubs with thick, opposite lvs and mostly small fls. 250, cosmop.
Flowers (3-4)5(6-9)-merous, isomerous, usually small and not showy, in cymes arranged either in dense subsessile or pedunculate axillary clusters sometimes forming thyrsoid inflorescences, or in corymb-like axillary or terminal loose or ± dense inflorescences, sometimes 1(2) flowers in the leaf-axils.
Carpels free or connate at the base, oblong or obovoid, attenuate towards or contracted into a ± short usually terminal style, sometimes the styles nearly absent and stigmas subdorsal, completely glabrous or papillose along the suture; ovules numerous or sometimes 1-4.
Corolla usually white or whitish turning orange or brownish-red when dry, sometimes red or carmine, rarely bright yellow, persistent; petals erect or stellate, connate at the base into a ± short tube.
Leaves opposite, usually decussate, the lowermost frequently rosulate, free or ± connate in a sheath, usually simple, undivided and entire, thin to ± thick, flat, terete, semiterete, ovoid, etc.
Annual or perennial succulent herbs, sometimes with a tuber-like root, or undershrubs or shrubs with ± woody root-stock and succulent usually ± fleshy leaves.
Stamens free or with the lower part of the filaments connate with the corolla-tube, alternipetalous; anthers ovate or oblong, sometimes nearly circular.
Calyx usually shorter than the corolla, with the sepals free or slightly connate at the base, appressed to the corolla, ± succulent.
Scales shorter than the carpels, hyaline or reddish-brown or rose, thin, narrowly to broadly spathulate or obovate or cuneate.
