Description: Monoecious subshrubs or herbs, milky latex absent.
Leaves alternate, distichous, pinnately veined, toothed, petiolate; stipules free, lateral, caducous.
Inflorescences axillary, capitate cymes, short-pedunculate, bracteate. Male and female flowers on same plant: male flowers with calyx campanulate, 4-lobed; stamens 4, inflexed in bud. Female flowers 4–6-parted; ovary free; style nearly lateral; stigma 2-branched, filiform.
Fruit free, not fleshy. Achenes small, oblique globose, ± compressed. Seed with a membranous coat; endospermum absent; cotyledon wide; embryo incurved.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 2 species, North America, tropical east Asia, Africa (Madagascar), Australia. Australia: 1 species (native and naturalised), N.S.W., Qld, N.T., S.A., W.A.
| One species in NSW: Fatoua villosa |
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