Plants herbs, shrubs, or trees, hemiparasitic on roots or aerial and brittle on branches of other plants, unisexual or bisexual and monoecious or synoecious. Leaves opposite or alternate, simple, without stipules, sometimes reduced to scales. Flowers small, sometimes less that 3 mm across, unisexual or bisexual; perianths of 1 undifferentiated whorl of 2-5(-8) tepals; stamens opposite the tepals, attached to the tepals or free; ovaries inferior; stigmas often capitate or lobed.
Santalaceae as used here includes the Viscaceae. Molecular data strongly support both the monophylly of the Viscaceae clade and its inclusion in the Santalaceae but there is no one has, as yet, provided a practical morphological description of the whole family. The above draws on two sources, descriptions of Viscaceae and Santalaceae (traditionally interpreted from the Flora of Somalia and the description on the Angiosperm Phylogeny web site on 14 Jun 2020.