Annual, subshrubs or shrubs covered with subsessile glands (emitting strong aromatic smell), sometimes intermixed with simple and/or glandular hairs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, entire, dentate or pinnate. Inflorescences much branched, lax, or dense and spike-like. Flowers in cymes or solitary, hermaphrodite or unisexual. Perianth of 2-5 free or diversely connate segments, often keeled or cristate at the midrib. Stamens 2-5. Stigmas (stylodia) 2, free or connate at base. Fruits almost spheroidal, with length:thickness ratio of 1.2-1.3:1. Pericarp very thin (3–15 µm.), 1-2-layered, hyaline, peeled off the seed, often with papillae or glandular hairs at its surface, sometimes the surface smooth, with reticulate or undulate ultra-sculpture. Seed-coat 5–25 µm., smooth or undulate, outer layer (testa) without stalactites; embryo horizontal and/or vertical.