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Diffuse procumbent or creeping annual herbs, close-streaked with numerous short-linear whitish slightly prominent raphides. Leaves opposite, sessile or shortly petiolate, linear to oblanceolate-spathulate or elliptic, entire, sub-succulent. Stipules absent. Inflorescences axillary, umbelliform to laxly dichasial, sessile or pedunculate. Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual, regular, pedicellate, small and inconspicuous. Sepals 5, free. Stamens 5–20, hypogynous, free. Carpels 3–6, or 10–15, superior, free, indehiscent, one-seeded, separating into achenes in fruit; pericarp thin, transparent, white-papillose; styles as many as the carpels.2 species, one African, the other extending from the Cape through tropical Africa and Asia to Malaysia.