Annual, erect or prostrate, herb; stem subsucculent, glabrous, reddish-purple; nodal appendages, scarious, minute or absent, leaves alternate, subopposite, cuneate-oblong, truncate or retuse at the apex, flat, thick, pale, glistening beneath; petiole very short; inflorescence few flowered, terminal, sessile heads, subtended by 2-8 scarious, scaly leaves; sepals 2, fleshy, ovate-triangular, connate below, imbricate, persistent; petals 5, yellow, equaling the sepals, obovate, slightly notched, very delicate and soon falling; stamens 8-12, filaments slender, filaments unequal, anthers 2-celled; style 3-8 fid, divisions stigmatose; ovary half inferior, half adnate, 1-celled; ovules 2-many on basal or central column; capsule crustaceous, dehiscing transversely; seeds many, muriculate, tubercled, punctate.