Female inflorescences larger, with many flowers on a flat, disk-shaped receptacle; flowers (3)4-merous, tepals ± markedly cucullate, ovary erect, stigma penicillate, staminodes present.
Male inflorescences usually small, ± bell-or cup-shaped, usually with less than 10 flowers; male flowers 4–5-merous, with a rudimentary ovary.
Inflorescences single in the leaf axils, unisexual, rarely bisexual, pedunculate; receptacles surrounded by fused bracts.
Annual or short lived perennial, monoecious or apparently dioecious herbs.
Stipules intrapetiolar, fused.
Leaves opposite, petiolate.
Achene ovoid, verrucose.
Cystoliths elongated.