Annual herbs or subshrubs, minutely papillose to glabrous. Stems erect, ascending, prostrate or climbing. Leaves alternate, entire, fleshy, exstipulate, greenish or yellowish. Calyx tube produced above the ovary; lobes 3-5, short, often unequal. Stamens few to many, alternating with the calx-lobes. Ovary half-inferior or inferior, 1-9-celled with 1 pendulous ovule in each cell. Styles as many as cells. Capsule obconical or globose, hard, dry, indehiscent, terete, often horned or spiny at top.