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Herbs or rarely subshrubs. Leaves callose mucronate at the apex; stipular sheath adnate to the petiole. Inflorescences terminal or pseudo axillary, flowers solitary at the nodes or clustered. Flowers 4-merous, isostylous or heterostylous, the calycine cup dentate; corolla tube often short, often barbate at the mouth; stamens inserted at the base of the corolla lobes or well into the tube, the anthers dorsifixed; style glabrous or pubescent, the stigmas 2, subglobose or elongate, the ovary 2-celled, the ovules numerous on a peltate placenta. Fruits capsular,
the wall horny, sometimes produced within the calyx into a beak and there de-hiscing loculicidally by a cleft; seeds usually numerous, subglobose or angular, smooth or alveolate.
Seeds mostly numerous, angular or subglobose, smooth or alveolate, often becoming viscid when moistened; testa cells smooth to distinctly punctate, granular or tuberculate.
Flowers mostly small, hermaphrodite, heterostylous or isostylous, in terminal or axillary lax or dense inflorescences or sometimes fasciculate or solitary at the nodes.
Ovary 2-locular; ovules mostly numerous on peltate placentas; style short or long, included or exserted, filiform; stigma lobes linear to subglobose.
Annual or perennial herbs or rarely subshrubs, the stems erect or prostrate, simple or branched, or rarely cushion-herbs.
Leaves opposite; stipules with 1-several fimbriae from a short base which is often adnate to the leaf base.
Calyx lobes 4 (rarely more), mostly small, equal, narrowly to broadly triangular.
Capsule subglobose to oblong, usually with a loculicidally dehiscent beak.
Corolla tube usually short, cylindrical; lobes 4; throat often hairy.
Stamens enclosed or exserted.
