Plants herbs or shrubs, often glandular hairy. Leaves alternate or opposite, simple or compound, usually with stipules. Inflorescences cymes or umbels of flowers solitary. Flowers usually bisxual, radially to slightly bilaterally symmetric, usually 5-merous. Sepals free or united at the base, usually imbricate, the uppermost sometimes spurred. Petals free, imbricate, usually unequal, usually with glands alternating with the petals. Stamens usually 2x, 3x, times as many as the petals, some sometimes reduced to staminodes; filaments united at least at the base. Ovary superior, (2)3-5(8)-celled, with 1-2 ovules per cell, usually separating in fruit into mericarps; mericarps beaked, breakng away at the base from a persistent central column. Seeds smooth or minutely reticulate, with no or scanty endosperm.
The family Geraniaciaceae has about 15 genera and 790 species which grow mostly in temperate and subtropical regions.
