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Perennial herbs, shrubs or small trees, glabrous throughout; monoecious. Leaves alternate, opposite or verticillate, simple, petiolate; usually with glandular filiform stipules and often with 2-3 cyathiform or scutelliform glands at the base of the blade. Inflorescence terminal, spicate, bisexual. Staminate flowers at distal nodes, solitary or in compressed cymules, subtending bracts biglandular; calyx 2-lobed; apetalous; disc absent; stamens 2, the filaments connate at base, the anthers extrorse; pollen grains ellipsoid to spheroid, usually 3-colpate. Pistillate flowers solitary at proximal nodes; sepals 3, usually distinct; petals absent; car-pels 3 or 2, each with 1 ovule, the styles connate at base, simple. Fruit capsular, a hardened gynobase persisting after dehiscence; seed carunculate or not, rugulose or smooth, the endosperm mealy.
Monoecious, apetalous; no disk; staminate fls with 2-lobed cal and 2 stamens, the filaments connate below; pistillate fls with 3 sep; ovary with 3 locules and ovules; styles united at base, not lobed; capsule 3-seeded, the base of each valve persisting after the fertile portion has fallen; caruncle sunken in a ventral depression of the seed; glabrous shrubs or perennial herbs with simple, alternate, glandular-serrate lvs and terminal spikes of small fls. 25+, mainly New World.
