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Trees, shrubs, or herbs, mostly monoecious, less often dioecious; branching often "phyllanthoid": main stems with spiral phyllotaxy, ultimate branchlets sometimes clustered on short shoots, resembling pinnate leaves and often deciduous as a unit, less often stems all similar with spiral or distichous phyllotaxy; hairs simple, often absent, rarely branched. Leaves alternate, often reduced and scalelike on main stems, strongly distichous on leafy stems; stipules small, deciduous or persistent; petiole short; leaf blade simple, margin entire, venation pinnate. Inflorescences axillary, sometimes at leafless nodes, solitary or in fascicles, cymes, glomerules, racemes, or panicles; pedicels delicate. Male flowers: sepals (2 or)3-6, in 1 or 2 series, free, imbricate, margin entire, eroded, denticulate or fimbriate; petals absent; disk glands 3-6, usually free; stamens 2-6; filaments free or connate; anthers 2-locular, extrorse, thecae 2, connectives obscure, longitudinally or horizontally dehiscent, rarely obliquely so; pistillode absent. Female flowers: sepals as in male or more; disk glands usually small, free or connate into an annulus or urn-shape, surrounding ovary; ovary smooth or less commonly roughened, bullate, or hairy, 3(-12)-locular; ovules 2 per locule; styles 3(-12), apex 2-lobed or 2-branched, rarely entire, erect, spreading, or recurved. Fruit usually a capsule, globose or depressed globose, smooth or warty, dehiscent into 3 2-valved cocci when mature, less often a fleshy berry or drupe; columella persistent. Seeds without caruncle or aril, trigonous, surface smooth, sculptured or striate; seed-coat dry crustaceous, endosperm whitish, cartilaginous; embryo straight or slightly curved; cotyledons usually considerably broader than radical. x = 13.
Trees, shrubs or herbs of very diverse habit; monoecious or subdioecious, much less commonly dioecious; branching unspecialized (twigs then persistent, with spiral or distichous phyllotaxy) or (in many species) axes of two kinds: persistent, with spiral phyllotaxy and without flowers, and deciduous, with distichous phyllotaxy and often floriferous. Leaves usually alternate, entire, varying in size and texture; short-petiolate; stipules deciduous or persistent. Inflorescences usually axillary; flowers solitary or in reduced cymes, in some species cauliflorous or in pseudoterminal thyrses; gamosepalous, 4-6 lobed; apetalous; disc usually present. Staminate flowers with mostly 3-6(2-15) stamens, the filaments free or connate; disc usually cut into segments; pollen grains sometimes spheroidal and 3-colporate but often with other patterns, small, intectate; pistillode absent. Pistillate flowers pedicellate or subsessile; calyx-lobes usually 5 or 6, usually entire; disc entire or cut into segments, rarely absent; carpels usually 3, the ovules 2 per locule, hemi-tropous, the styles free or united, bifid or variously divided or dilated. Fruits usually capsular, ? explosively dehiscent, less commonly baccate or drupaceous, the crustaceous cocci separating from a persistent columella; seeds usually 2 per locule (rarely only 1 developing), the seed-coat dry and crustaceous, smooth or sculptured, the endosperm cartilaginous, the embryo straight or slightly curved.
Herbs, shrubs, or trees, annual or perennial, terrestrial (P. fluitans floating aquatic), usually monoecious, sometimes dioecious, glabrous or hairy, hairs simple [branched]; branching phyllanthoid or not. Stems erect to prostrate. Leaves persistent or deciduous, alternate, simple, all well developed, scalelike on main stems and well developed on ultimate branchlets, or rarely all scalelike; stipules persistent; blade margins entire. Inflorescences unisexual or bisexual, cymules or flowers solitary. Pedicels present, pistillate sometimes elongating in fruit. Staminate flowers: sepals 4–6, connate basally; petals 0; nectary extrastaminal, 4–6 glands (intrastaminal, annular, 4-lobed in P. warnockii); stamens 2–5[–15]; filaments distinct or partially to completely connate; connectives not extending beyond anthers; pistillode absent. Pistillate flowers: sepals persistent, (4–)5–6, connate basally; petals 0; nectary annular to cupular, entire or lobed, or distinct glands [absent]; pistil 3(–4)-carpellate; styles 3(–4), distinct or connate to 1/2 length, 2-fid [rarely unbranched]. Fruits capsules or drupes. Seeds 2 per locule, rounded-trigonous; seed coat dry, verrucose, papillate, ribbed, or smooth; caruncle absent. x = 8, 9, 13.
Female flowers: pedicels more robust than in male flowers; sepals larger than but otherwise as in male; petals absent; disk hypogynous, annular, entire or lobed, rarely the glands distinct (e.g. P. maderaspatensis); staminodes rarely present; ovary sessile or stipitate, 3(8)-locular, ovules 2 per locule; styles 3(8), free or united at the base, variously held, bifid or 2-lobed, rarely simple (P. ovalifolius), the stigmas usually recurved.
Monoecious or dioecious herbs, shrubs or trees of various habit, often with the shoots differentiated into 2 or 3 types: long lead shoots of unlimited growth (orthotropic shoots), short lateral shoots of potentially unlimited growth (brachyblasts) and leafy or floriferous lateral shoots of limited growth (plagiotropic shoots) which may resemble pinnate leaves or pseudoracemose inflorescences (see Tab. 8).
Male flowers: pedicels often capillary; sepals (4)5–6, subequal, imbricate; petals absent; disk glands (4)5–6, free, alternisepalous, or rarely disk annular (P.pinnatus); stamens 2–6, filaments free or some or all partially or completely united, anthers basifixed, extrorse, variously held and dehiscent, thecae parallel or convergent; pistillode absent.
Monoecious; fls minute, in small axillary cymules; cal 4–6-lobed; pet none; staminate fls with mostly 3–5 stamens, an evident extrastaminal disk, and reduced or no pistil; ovary globose, the 3 short styles ± bifid; seeds 2 per locule, without a caruncle; herbs or shrubs with numerous simple, alternate, entire, stipulate lvs. 750, mainly tropical.
Seeds 2 per locule, usually segmentiform, triquetrous and dorsally convex, rarely ovoid (e.g. P. inflatus), tuberculate, ridged, lineate or smooth, ecarunculate; testa usually thinly crustaceous; albumen fleshy; embryo straight or slightly curved; cotyledons flat, straight or rarely flexuous.
Flowers small, axillary; male flowers geminate or fasciculate, usually in the lower axils of the lateral shoots; female flowers solitary in the upper axils, or male and female flowers on leafless lateral shoots, often pendent.
Leaves often scale-like (cataphylls) on the lead shoots and short shoots, normal (trophophylls) on the lateral leafy shoots and occasionally also on the lead shoots.
Foliage leaves alternate, often distichous, shortly petiolate, stipulate, simple, entire, penninerved, the nerves usually looped.
Fruits 3(8)-celled, dry and septicidally and loculicidally dehiscent or fleshy and subindehiscent; endocarp usually crustaceous.
Stipules of the scale leaves larger than those of the foliage leaves.
Indumentum simple, rarely dendritic (Asia).
