Description: Shrubs, often spinose and pubescent.
Leaves alternate or clustered, simple, semisucculent; stipules minute, often caducous.
Inflorescences dichasial cymes; flowers shortly pedicellate; bracts small, caducous. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, often functionally unisexual. Calyx 5-lobed, persistent. Petals 5 or rarely 6, hooded, induplicate-valvate. Stamens 10–15, without appendages; anthers ± basifixed. Ovary superior, 3-locular, pubescent, with 1 pendulous ovule per loculus; style short, thick, obconical; stigmas 3, decurrent.
Fruit a drupe, with fleshy exocarp and hard bony endocarp (putamen), 1-seeded by abortion; putamen ovoid-conical, with irregular pits in the lower part and 6 longitudinal furrows in the upper third; seed without endosperm.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 9 species, from western Sahara to C Asia. Australia: 1 or 2 species, all mainland States.
Sometimes included in the family Zygophyllaceae.
Text by K.L. Wilson, Flora of New South Wales Vol. 3: 14 (1992)
Taxon concept:
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