Philoxerus R.Br.

Flowers perfect, bracteate and bibracteolate, subsessile in spikes. Sepals 5, discrete or basally slightly connate, hypogynous, the outer 3 flat and broader, the inner 2 conduplicate and narrower. Stamens 5, the filaments flattened and united below to form a very shallow tube; pseudostaminodia absent; anthers 2-locellate, introrse, medially attached. Ovary ovoid to orbiculate, 1-locular, 1-ovulate; ovules on elongate flattened funicles; stigmata 2, on 1 short style, often erect at anthesis and recurving in fruit. Fruit an orbiculate indehiscent utricle; seeds cochleate-orbiculate, reddish brown. Prostrate or decumbent glabrous to pubes-cent herbaceous perennials. Leaves opposite, entire, often succulent, the sessile bases usually amplexicaul. Inflorescences of terminal and axillary pedunculate congested spikes or glomes often subtended by slightly reduced foliar leaves.