Herbs or subshrubs [shrubs or trees], annual, biennial, or perennial; trichomes (1) pointed with surfaces ± smooth or antrorsely barbed and (2) retrorsely barbed along shaft and at apex or only at apex. Stems erect, clambering, or decumbent. Leaves basal and cauline or cauline; petiole present or absent; blade hastate, deltate, cordate, ovate, elliptic, lanceolate, linear, spatulate, oblanceolate, obovate, or orbiculate, lobed or unlobed, margins dentate, serrate, crenate, or entire. Inflorescences dichasia or flowers solitary; peduncle inconspicuous. Pedicels not elongating in fruit. Flowers: hypanthium adnate to ovary proximally, free distally; perianth whorls differentiated; sepals green, connate basally, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, shorter than petals; petals white, yellow, or orange, sometimes red proximally, distinct or connate basally, spatulate, ovate, elliptic, oblanceolate, or obovate, spreading to erect, glabrous or hairy abaxially, on margins, or on apices; nectary distal on ovary; stamens 8–45+, exserted or included; filaments monomorphic, filiform or dorsiventrally flattened and linear, or heteromorphic, outer dorsiventrally flattened and linear, elliptic, spatulate, or oblanceolate [lanceolate], inner filiform or dorsiventrally flattened and linear, longer than anthers; anthers without distal connective extension; staminodes present or absent; pistil 3-carpellate (5–7-carpellate in M. decapetala), placentae parietal; stigma lingulate, 3-lobed (5–7-lobed in M. decapetala), papillate. Fruits capsules, dehiscing by apical valves [splitting longitudinally], cup-shaped, lingulate, subcylindric, cylindric, ovoid, urceolate, clavate, or funnelform, straight or curved, sometimes S-shaped; sepals persistent. Seeds (1–)2–60+, ovoid, oblong, bottle-shaped, pyriform, irregularly polygonal, or trigonal prisms, dorsiventrally flattened or not, 0.5–4.5 mm, winged or not winged. x = 9.
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Herbaceous annuals or perennials, rarely small shrubs or trees, the stems and foliage scabrous and hispid, but without stinging hairs. Leaves alternate or op-posite, variously incised or lobed. Inflorescence terminal, cymose, usually few-flowered. Flowers large to mediocre; sepals foliaceous, 5; petals 5-10, free or barely united at the base; stamens 10 to very numerous, free or united at the base of the filaments, wholly fertile or the outermost becoming petaloid and sterile; ovary inferior, 1-celled, with few to numerous ovules borne upon 3-7 parietal placentas, the style elongate, filiform, the stigma scarcely dilated, capitate or obscurely divided. Fruit an apically dehiscent 3-to 7-valved capsule.
Hypanthium ovoid to cylindric or obconic; sep 5; pet 5–10; stamens 10–200, distinct or connate into fascicles; ovules 2–many on 3 parietal placentas; style 3-lobed; fr a capsule; annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, armed with stiff, barbed hairs, with alternate, serrate to pinnatifid lvs and 1–many often large, white to yellow or orange fls terminating the branches. (Nuttallia) 50, New World.
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