by Nathaniel Lord Britton & Addison Brown, An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States… (1913)
“ Low annual herbs, with filiform stems and fibrous roots. Leaves basal or reduced to cauline scales or bracts. Flowers regular, perfect, the perianth with 6 small thick lobes, its tube adnate to the ovary. Stamens 3 or 6, included, inserted on the tube of the perianth; anthers 2-celled, the sacs transversely dehiscent. Style slender; stigmas 3, dilated; ovary inferior, with 3 central or parietal placentae. Ovules numerous. Capsule many-seeded. Seeds minute, oblong; endosperm none. Ten genera and about 70 species, widely distributed in tropical regions. ”
