Annual to perennial, glabrous or hairy, erect or prostrate to decumbent herbs or undershrubs. Leaves petiolate, stipulate, with or without lobes. Flowers axillary, solitary or fascicled, rarely in terminal raceme. Epicalyx segments 3, free, linear to ovate. Calyx 5-lobed. Petals 5, notched, obovate or oblong-obovate. Staminal column included, glabrous or hairy. Carpels 8-15; ovary as many loculed as the number of carpels, each locule 1-ovuled; style free. Fruit small, discoid; mericarps reticulately veined or smooth, glabrous or pubescent, 1-seeded. Seeds usually glabrous; embryo curved; generally non endospermic.