Elatinaceae

Annual herbs. Leaves stipulate, opposite or verticillate, simple. Flowers axillary, solitary, glomerate or fascicled, actinomorphic, ♀, small or minute; sepals 2-5, free or shortly connate, imbricate in bud, pellucid or with pellucid margins, 1-nerved or nerveless, persistent. Petals the same number as sepals, not or slightly surpassing them, imbricate in bud, free, membranous, persistent. Disk absent. Stamens as many as petals (and alternating with them) or more, but not more than twice their number, persistent; anthers dorsifixed, small, 2-celled; cells bursting longitudinally. Ovary superior, 2—5-celled, isomerous (except in Bergia trimera); cells ~-ovuled. Ovules in the inner angles of the cells. Styles equal in number to the cells, free, short, persistent. Capsule small, septicidally dehiscent. Seeds many, minute, oblong, straight or curved, in transverse section terete; embryo straight or curved; cotyledons short; no endosperm. Distr. Genera 2, in the temperate and tropical zones of both hemispheres, both of them in Malaysia.