PLANTS: Annual or perennial herbs, shrubs, or rarely trees.

LEAVES: alternate, palmately or pinnately compound (sometimes reduced to 1 leaflet), usually with petioles.

INFLORESCENCE: cymes, sometimes umbel- or raceme-like, or flowers solitary, usually axillary; peduncle bracted.

FLOWERS: generally perfect, actinomorphic, often heterostylous, with 5 distinct sepals and petals or these fused at base; stamens 10 or 15, connate below, usually of 2 lengths; pistil 1, with 3-5 carpels, the locules equalling carpels in number; styles 1-5, usually distinct.

FRUITS: usually fleshy loculicidal capsules.

SEEDS: usually arillate.

NOTES: 8 genera, 575 spp., chiefly of temperate regions.

REFERENCES: Denton, Melinda. 1998 Oxalidaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 30(2): 115.