Perennial or annual, erect or decumbent herb with numerous short, villous branches spreading from fusiform or tuberous roots; leaves alternate, sessile, fleshy, linear-oblong, obtuse or acute; nodal appendages of sparingly tufted, very short, brown hairs; flowers terminal, solitary or in clusters, surrounded by a whorl of 8, long leaves and tufted hairs; sepals 5; petals 5, yellow or pink; stamens 20 or more; style filiform, 5 cleft at the apex; ovary half inferior, half adnate, 1-celled; ovules 2-many on basal or central column; capsules ovoid, sessile with a short conical top, glabrous; seeds black, granular.