Annuals or shrubby plants. Leaves alternate or opposite, sessile, fleshy, narrow. Flowers small, hermaphrodite, axillary, rarely unisexual, sessile and 2-bracteolate. Perianth 5-fid or 5-parted into ovate, oblong or lanceolate segments membranous or indurated at base, in fruit usually with a transverse, scarious tubercle on the back. Hypogynous disk present. Stamens (4- ) 5; filaments mostly exserted; anthers muticous or mucronate; staminodes usually 0, rarely developed. Ovary ovoid to subglobular; style long or short, with 2 (-3) stigmas. Fruit dry, rarely berry-like, orbicular, included in perianth. Seeds with horizontal, rarely oblique ebbryo.