| General Information |
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| Distribution | A genus of over 70, often weedy species of temperate and subtropical regions of the world.
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Habit
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Annual or perennial herbs, rarely woody subshrubs or shrubs, often strongly scented, often densely farinose, i.e. covered with vesicular globose trichomes, which later collapse forming a cup-shaped
structure mostly persistent; stems erect or ascending, prostrate or scrambling, branched, branches alternate or the lowermost ones
sometimes subopposite.
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Leaves
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Leaves simple, alternate; blade thin to thickish, sometimes somewhat
fleshy, linear to trullate, rhombic or triangular-hastate, margin entire to dentate or lobed, usually petiolate.
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Flowers
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Inflorescences terminal and lateral, ebracteate or with bract-like leaves, with flowers in compact or loose glomerules arranged spicately or paniculately, sometimes in part
single; flowers perfect or rarely unisexual; perianth sometimes colored but mostly otherwise unchanged in fruit, segments (4–)5, connate near the base or close to the middle, usually with membranous margins and roundish to keeled back, in fruit somewhat closing or spreading; stamens almost always 5; stigmas 2.
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Fruit
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Fruit a utricle, with membranous or sometimes succulent pericarp, firmly adherent to or ± easily removable from the seed.
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Seeds
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Seed 1, horizontal, depressed-globular to lenticular, margin rounded to subacute, testa black, almost smooth
to finely striate, rugulose or variously pitted.
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Contributor
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Nancy Khan
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