TURNERACEAE  

Annuals or perennials (often chamaephytes), variously hispid and often glandular-pubescent. Leaves linear to narrowly ovate, usually serrate or lobulate to deeply incised; stipules small or 0. Flowers in simple, secund, few- to many-flowered racemes with apical part recurved in bud, accrescent and erect with age, flowers developing one after the other; scape long and thin; pedicels short, somewhat accrescent and often recurved in fruit; bracts small; a few sterile bracts often present on rachis. Calyx usually setiferous on outside, pubescent in lower half inside. Petals obovate, unguiculate, yellow, orange-red or white; claw appressed to calyx tube in upper half, fused to it below; with a ligule or small pustule on upper part of claw. Stamens hypogynous, reaching to throat; filaments filiform, sometimes narrowly winged, occasionally 3 shorter; anthers oblong. Ovary ellipsoid; styles erect, heterostylous; stigmas apical, small, multipartite. Capsule resembling a siliqua of Brassicaceae, terete, usually long and thin, often constricted between the uniseriate seeds, rostrate. Seeds straight, terete, obtuse, reticulate, usually with 2 pores in each cavity; aril unilateral, short.

Small shrublets, variously pubescent with simple hairs, aromatic. Leaves subsessile, serrate, with large, sessile, circular glands on lower surface; stipules minute or 0. Flowers solitary, axillary. Calyx: sepals fused in lower third, forming a cup. Petals arising in throat of calyx tube, obovate, clawed, alternating with calyx lobes and together forming a fimbriate annulus in the throat. Stamens hypogynous, with long or short filaments. Ovary: ovules many, uni- to multi-seriate; styles 3, heterostylous. Capsule globose, hairy. Seed straight or slightly curved, reticulate; aril unilateral, as long as or shorter than seed. x = 7 (polyploidy).