Perennial herbs, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves alternate and spirally arranged, irregularly multifid, rarely entire, fleshy, more or less sessile; stipules small, linear, acuminate. Inflorescences axillary, of dichasial cymes, often reduced to a single flower. Flowers bisexual, pedicellate; sepals 4 or 5, imbricate, linear, entire, toothed or multifid, leaf-like, persistent in fruit; petals 4 or 5, imbricate, oblong, white; stamens 10–15, broad-based, some reduced to staminodes, inserted at the base of the short annular disc, anthers basifixed; ovary 2- or 3-celled, deeply 2- or 3-lobed, sessile, ovules many per cell, style long, twisted, 3-keeled above middle, stigmatic papillae along the keels. Fruit a loculicidal capsule or a berry; seeds many, mucilaginous, with endosperm.
About 6 species, from the western Mediterranean to Mongolia, also Mexico and Texas; 1 species naturalised in Australia.
