Description: Annual terrestrial or aquatic herbs.
Leaves decussate (sometimes appearing rosette forming in diminutive plants), sessile; margins entire.
Inflorescence of few-flowered terminal and/or axillary umbellate clusters, cymose, or flowers solitary. Flowers enclosed in a 2-lobed leafy involucre, bisexual. Calyx absent. Corolla 4-lobed, white; lobes valvate in bud. Stamens included in corolla tube. Ovary semi-inferior. Styles 2, usually free at base, free or connate distally.
Fruit a capsule, dehiscing along the ventral suture (septicidal), involucre persistent; seeds many, minute, surface reticulate or sulcate.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 5 species, endemic to southern Australia (NSW, Vic., Tas., SA, WA).
Text by Kerry Gibbons
Taxon concept: C.R. Dunlop in Flora of Australia vol 28 (1996: p 59).
| One species in NSW: Phyllangium sulcatum |
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