Plants annual or perennial herbs, never scrambling, stems and leaves often with a reddish flush. Leaves opposite, subequal, petiolate, lower surfaces often consipuously pale. Inflorescences small, often congested cymes or irregular umbles, sometimes aggregated into terminal panicles; bracts very inconspicuous in most species. Perianth limbs sharply differentiated, campanulate, up to 2.5 mm long, white, pink, or reddish purple, soon falling; stamens 2-4, shortly exserted. Anthocarps fusiform to clavate or obconical, with 3-5(-6) ribs, these sometimes extended into corky ridges, glabrous or with glandular hairs, particularly between the ribs, never with large, multicellular glands.
Boerhavia is a tropical genus of about 20 species. It includes several rather variable, pantropical weeds. There are 12 species in Somaliland and Somalia.
Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.
