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Herbs , perennial, rhizomatous; stems short, fleshy, aerial stems not evident; sap milky. Leaves alternate; stipules persistent, free. Leaf blade ovate to orbiculate, margins entire or pinnately lobed; venation palmate near base of blade, otherwise pinnate. Inflorescences axillary, flowers embedded in long-pedunculate, flat receptacle. Flowers: staminate and pistillate on same plant. Staminate flowers: calyx minute, 2-3-lobed; stamens 1-3, inflexed in bud. Pistillate flowers: calyx tubular, 4-lobed; ovary inferior, embedded in receptacle, 1-locular; style 2-branched. Syncarps disc-or cup-shaped; drupes embedded in enlarged, fleshy, common receptacle. Seeds explosively expelled.
Herbs, monoecious (or dioecious). Leaves spirally arranged, rosulate; stipules semi-amplexicaul, free, persistent; blade entire or lobed to parted, pinnately to subpalmately veined. Inflorescences in the leaf axils, bisexual or unisexual, pedunculate; receptacle discoid to cup-shaped, with (sub)marginal bracts. Staminate flowers numerous, superficial; tepals 2(-3), free; stamens 2; pistillode absent. Pistillate flowers numerous, embedded in the receptacle; perianth tubular; ovary free, stigmas 2, subulate. Fruit free, a dehiscent drupelet, the white, fleshy exocarp ejecting the endocarp body; seed small, with endosperm, cotyledons flat and equal.
Succulent or subsucculent herbs. Leaves spiral, entire or variously lobed; stipules lateral. Flowers minute, monoecious, interspersed and immersed in a common discoid or radiate head, the obsolete perianths more or less concrescent with the receptacle. Staminate flowers with 1-3 minute stamens, the filaments inflexed before anthesis. Pistillate flowers with the ovary included and the excentric stigma shortly 2-lobed. Receptacles accrescent and fleshy in fruit, at length extruding the minute achenes.
