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Glabrous annual to perennial herbs; rosette usually 0. Stems branching, prostrate to ascending, vegetative and reproductive. Lvs many, decussate. Infl. terminal, often overtopped by vegetative shoot and apparently axillary, racemose, cymose, or reduced to a solitary bracteate fl. Sepals persistent. Petals 5, united at base into a short cleft tube. Stamens 3. Ovary superior, of 3 fused carpels; style branches 3. Ovules 3. Capsule 1-locular, dehiscent by 3 valves. Seeds 3.
Sep 2, herbaceous, persistent; pet 3 or 5, often slightly unequal, sometimes connate below; stamens as many as and opposite the pet, or some members of the cycle missing; ovules and style-branches 3; fr a 3-valved capsule with 1–3 seeds; fibrous-rooted annual or perennial herbs without basal lvs, ours with several pairs of opposite lvs, the fls in axillary or terminal racemes, or solitary in the axils, or in small axillary cymules. 50, mostly N. Amer.
Copiously branched, succulent herbs or waterplants. Basal rosette mostly absent. Leaves ovate to linear, occasionally parallel-veined, without axillary hairs. Flowers in axillary and/or terminal cymes or solitary. Calyx persistent. Petals 5. Stamens 3 or 5; anthers 4-celled. Ovary superior; style arms 3. Fruit pyriform to globular, 3-valved, after dehiscence occasionally twisted. Seeds 1-5.
Fls solitary or in few-fld cymes. Sepals 2, persistent; petals 5, united below into a short cleft tube. Stamens 3-(6), opp. the 3 smaller petals; style 3-fid. Capsule ± globose, 3-valved, dehiscing explosively; seeds 3, black. Small annual to perennial glab. herbs with opp. lvs. Widespread in temperate to cold regions, with a few not well-defined spp. or of 1 aggregate sp.
