Prostrate, annual, woolly, desert herb. Leaves alternate, petiolate, usually with minute stipules or exstipulate. Flowers often small, sometimes large and showy, solitary or in pairs. Calyx 5-fid, lobes alternating with 5-spiny bracteoles. Petals 5, small. Stamens 10. Carples 3-10, slightly united at the base and adnate to the throat of the calyx tube (hypanthium) tapering into slightly exserted, persistant styles; stigma minute, capitate; ovary inferior, 5-10 loculed, with one ovule in each locule. Fruit dry, woody, flattened, orbicular, spiny or winged, few seeded. Seeds horizontal, non endospermic. Seeds are retained in the hard woody, discoid fruit, perforated by the plumule upwards and by the radicle downwards and persists as a collar around the hypocotyl in case of Neurada.