Polygalaceae

Herbs, shrubs or trees, sometimes climbing. Leaves usually alternate, entire. Stipules wanting or stipular glands present. Inflorescence consisting of axillary or terminal spikes, cymes or panicles. Flowers hermaphrodite, irregular, subtended by a bract and 2 bracteoles. Sepals 5 (or 4—7), imbricate, persistent, free or the 2 lower united, the 2 inner sepals largest, often winged or petaloid. Petals usually 3 (or 5), the lower median petal (“keel”) often concave, enclosing stamens and ovary, with or without a fringing crest, two petals as long as the keel and two wanting, very small or scale-like. Stamens usually 8; filaments united into a splitted sheath and adhering more or less to the petals; anthers basifixed, 1-celled, opening by a terminal or subterminal pore. Disk sometimes present. Ovary superior, 2-locular; style 1; stigma often tufted. Ovules solitary in each locule, pendulous, anatropous with a ventral raphe. Fruit a loculicidal 2-locular capsule, or a nut, samara or drupe. Seeds solitary in each locule, often pubescent. Embryo straight. Endosperm present or wanting. About 800 species in 13 genera in tropical and temperate regions.