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Herbs perennial [or annual, sometimes suffrutescent], with leafy rosettes, stolons, soboles (shoots), or turions (subterranean globose buds with fleshy scales). Stems glabrous to pubescent, often with lines of hairs decurrent from margins of petioles. Leaves opposite, becoming alternate and bractlike in inflorescence; petiolate or sessile; stipules absent; bracteoles absent. Inflorescences simple or branched racemes, panicles, spikes, or corymbs. Flowers 4-merous, often protandrous, with floral tube, producing nectar at base of style. Petals pink to rose-purple or white [or rarely cream-colored or orange-red], obcordate or obtrullate, notched at apex. Stamens 8, in two unequal whorls; pollen yellow, shed in tetrads. Style erect; stigma entire or 4-lobed. Fruit an elongate, slender capsule, 4-loculed, loculidical. Seeds many [or rarely only 4], generally with terminal coma of silky hairs [or coma rarely lacking]. 2n = [18, 20, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32,] 36, [38, 60].
Perennial herbs, often flowering in the first year, occasionally somewhat woody near the base. Leaves (in Mal.) opposite below, spirally arranged above. Flowers in the axils of the often greatly reduced upper leaves. Floral tube short (in Mal.) or essentially absent. Sepals 4, erect. Petals 4, white, pink, or purple, emarginate (in Mal.). Stamens 8, in 2 whorls, the epipetalous ones shorter. Stigma (in Mal.) clavate or rarely globose, usually surrounded by the shedding anthers at maturity. Ovary 4-locular, the ovules very numerous. Fruit a long, slender, loculicidal capsule. Seeds very numerous, small, with a chalazal plume of trichomes (coma).
Fls 4-merous; hypanthium usually prolonged a little beyond the summit of the elongate, slender ovary and simulating a cal-tube; sep ovate to lanceolate, deciduous from the fr; pet white to pink or purple; stamens 8, often unequal; style short; stigma clavate, ovoid, or 4-cleft; capsule linear, elongate, 4-valved; seeds numerous, small, bearing a terminal coma of hairs; annual or usually perennial herbs, rarely subshrubs, with alternate or opposite, linear to ovate lvs; fls many to few in elongate or short terminal racemes, or even solitary. 200, N. and S. Temp. and Arctic.
Perennial or rarely annual herbs, sometimes woody at base. Leaves opposite or alternate. Flowers solitary in upper leaf axils, usually actinomorphic; without bracteoles. Hypanthium short but evident or (not in Australia) absent or to 4 cm long. Sepals 4, deciduous. Petals 4, usually white, pink or purplish pink, or (not in Australia) yellow or red. Stamens 8. Ovary 4-locular. Fruit a slender, elongate capsule. Seeds numerous, occasionally (not in Australia) few, usually with a coma of long, fine hairs.
Fls us. solitary, regular, 4-merous; perig. with very short calyx-tube; petals us. 2-lobed; stamens 8, in 2 series; ovary 4-celled, ovules ∞; stigma capitate to 4-lobed. Fr. a long narrow capsule with loculicidal dehiscence; seeds mostly papillose, with a chalazal brush of hairs (coma). Herbs or subshrubs with at least lower lvs opp. Some 200 spp., mainly of temperate regions.
Plants herbaceous; stems creeping and rooting in basal part, then erect or ascending, sts slightly woody at very base. Fls us. few, confined to axils of uppermost lvs; stigma us. clavate.
Stock ± woody; stems elongate, erect, herbaceous, many-fld towards tips; lvs rather large, of oblong or lanceolate order. Stigma us. clavate.
Stems slender, herbaceous, prostrate, rooting at nodes; fls in axils of intermediate lvs; mature peduncles much > lvs; stigma clavate.
Flowers in a terminal inflorescence (in F.Z. area) or borne in the axils of the leaves.
Petals 4, rose-purple or white (yellow in 1 N. American species), emarginate.
Ovary 4-locular; ovules pluriseriate in each locule, the seeds free.
Perennial herbs, often flowering the first year, rarely annual.
Pollen shed in tetrads, singly in a few non-African species.
Leaves opposite, usually alternate above, toothed or entire.
Seeds with a prominent tuft of hairs, the coma.
Stigma clavate, globose, or deeply 4-lobed.
Floral tube present (in F.Z. area) or nil.
Dehiscence of capsule loculicidal.
Stamens 8; anthers versatile.
Sepals 4, not persistent.
Bracteoles lacking.
Stipules absent.
