Plants herbs, shrubs, trees, or woody climbers. Leavesusually opposite, often unequal at a node, occasionally alternate, simple, without stipules. Inflorescences terminal or axillary cymes. often modified into thyrses, whorls, or umbels. Flowers usually bisexual, radially symmetric; perianths with tepals fused into a 5-merous tube, uppoer portion petaloid (perianth limb) often sharply differentiated and sometimes falling off the part surrounding the ovary; stamens 1-40, free, or basally connate into a tube; ovaries superior but often appearing inferior, formed from 1 carpel; ovules solitary in the obaries. Fruitsanthocarps, consisting of a 1-seeded achen within the thickened perianth base.
The Nycataginaceae family includes about 30 genera and 300 species. It is most numerous in the tropics, particularly the New World tropics, but some extend into temperate regions.