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Leaves opposite or nearly so, sessile or subsessile, reduced to small scales near the base of the stem in most species.
Calyx tubular, 5-lobed or with 5 (rarely 4) teeth, in some species intracostal veins occur.
Stems stiffly erect, green or grey, usually square in transverse section, of ten ridged.
Orifice of tube small, less than 1 mm. in diam. with hairs abundant at orifice.
Inflorescence a spike, flowers in axils of leaves (bracts) or in dense heads.
Annual, rarely perennial, hirsute or scabrous root-parasitic herbs.
Stamens 4, didynamous, inserted in the tube below the orifice.
Seeds minute (“dust seeds”) with prominent encircling ridges.
Capsule cylindric or subovoid, style usually persistent.
Corolla with a narrow tube and expanded bilabiate limb.
Upper lobes fused, erect, lower lobes 3, spreading.
Anthers unilocular, basifixed on short filaments.
Pistil tubular with numerous minute ovules.
Bracts leaf-like or reduced, bracteoles 2.
Germination hypogeal and cryptocotylar.
Style terete, elongate, stigma bifid.
Seedlings achlorophyllous, squamate.
Nectary present at base of ovary.
Pollen sparse, of ten sticky.
Dehiscence loculicidal.
Embryo small.
