Plants annual or perennial herbs, sometimes woody at the base, often more or less prostrate; young growth slightly succulent, minutely papillate. Leaves opposite, without stipules, petiolate; blades entire, flat, upper surfaces green. Inflorescences dense, axillary, bracteate and shortly pedunculate clusters of about 20 flowers. Flowers subtended by 2 bracteoles, sessile or almost so, bisexual, radially symmetric; perianth of 1 series of 5 tepals; tepals united for less than half their length, the free portion longer than the basal tube, lobes with a dorsal mucro behind the tip, inner surfaces white, pink or purple, margins scarious; stamens 5-12, rarely more, free; staminodes absent; ovaries superior, 2-lobed, 2 celled, with 2 ovules per cell, placentation basal; styles 2-branched. Fruits a circumscissle capsule that splits into 2 2-seeded segments at maturity; seeds rugose, black.
A genus of five species that grow in tropical Africa, Asia, and Australia. Prescott (1984) suggested that they might all be part of the same species.
Only one species is known from Somaliland and Somalia, Zaleya pentandra.
References
Gilbert, M.G. 1993. Zaleya. Pp. 115-116 in M Thulin (ed.) Flora of Somalia, vol. 1, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew,
Prescott, A. 1984. Zaleya. Pp. 60-61.in A.S. George et al., Flora of Australia, vol. 4, Phytolaccaceae to Chenopodiaceae. Commonwealth of Australia.