Annual herbs, sprawling, sometimes slightly woody at base. Leaves petiolate or subpetiolate, stipules absent. Inflorescences terminal or extra-axillary spikes or spike-like racemes; bracts present; bracteoles 0 or 2. Flowers bisexual, sessile or shortly pedicellate; tepals 5, oblong, persistent in fruit; stamens 3-5, alternating with tepals, or 6-9 with 1-4 epitepalous ones, anthers dorsifixed, globose; ovary 2-carpellate, 1-loculed, globose, stipitate, ovule 1, basifixed, style absent or nearly so, stigmas 2, each sometimes 3-partite. Fruits small, thin-walled drupes or achenes, tuberculate, glochidiate, muricate, spiny or smooth; seed 1, lenticular, testa black, shining, crustaceous, embryo curved, albumen scanty.
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