Annual or more rarely perennial herbs, glabrous or furnished with short and gland-like or multicellular hairs. Leaves alternate, long-petiolate, entire or sinuate. Inflorescence basically cymose, bracteate, formed of dense to lax axillary clusters or the upper clusters leafless and ± approximate to form a dense or lax “spike” or panicle. Flowers dioecious (not in Somalia) or monoecious. Tepals (2–)3–5, free or almost so, those of the female flowers somewhat accrescent in fruit. Stamens usually isomerous with the tepals, free. Ovary 1-ovulate. Stigmas 2–3. Fruit a dry, indehiscent, irregularly rupturing or circumscissile capsule. Seed usually compressed, black and shining.