Plants perennial herbs (annual or biennial elsewhere), pubescent with simple and/or stellate hairs, the roots usually thickened and tuberous. Stems prostrate to erect, usually unbranched below the inflorescence. Leaves petiolate, the blades entire to deeply palmately lobed, the margins entire to irregularly undulate, toothed, or lobed again. Stipules linear to broadly triangular or rhombic, often asymmetric at the base, shed early in some species. Inflorescences terminal and sometimes also axillary racemes, less commonly panicles or condensed and appearing as stalked clusters or umbellate. Flowers perfect or uncommonly only pistillate, in some species the calyx closely subtended by 3 bractlets. Calyces cup-shaped at fruiting, the lobes ascending to somewhat spreading but not becoming flattened horizontally, lobed 2/3–3/4 of their length, lanceolate to broadly triangular, the outer surface glabrous or variously hairy, the inner surface usually with a mat of stellate hairs, especially near the margins. Petals wine red to reddish purple or less commonly pink, pale lavender, or white, the broadly rounded to truncate tips with an irregular to somewhat fringed margin. Stamens numerous, the staminal column circular in cross-section, without a low crown of teeth at the tip, glabrous or hairy toward the base, the anthers white, red, or purple. Pistils with 9–23 locules, the carpels arranged in a loose flattened ring. Styles fused most of their length, each branch with a single linear stigmatic area along the inner side toward the tip. Fruits schizocarps breaking into 9–23 mericarps. Mericarps 3–6 mm long, indehiscent or dehiscent, wedge-shaped, the dorsal surface usually with a longitudinal groove and an inconspicuous inflexed beak (this often absent), oblong to kidney-shaped in profile, each differentiated into an incurved sterile upper cell (this rarely absent) and a lower cell containing 1 seed, the upper sterile cell smooth-walled to finely roughened and also usually with a shallow dorsal groove, the lower cell with a prominent reticulate pattern of thickenings on the sides (except in C. triangulata). Seeds 2–3 mm long, kidney-shaped, black or less commonly dark brown. Nine species, endemic to the central and southeastern United States and adjacent northeastern Mexico.

Species of Callirhoe have a long history of sporadic cultivation as garden ornamentals. Native Americans also appreciated the flowers of some species for their aesthetic appeal (Moerman, 1998) and used a decoction of the roots as an analgesic (Dorr, 1990; Moerman, 1998). The roots of all of the perennial species are both edible and palatable, and were eaten by Native Americans and early European travelers in the great Plains and southern states.