Herbs or shrubs. Stipules small or absent. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, simple; leaf blade margin entire. Inflorescences cymes or racemes. Flowers bisexual, regular. Sepals (4 or)5, distinct or basally connate, imbricate, persistent. Petals as many as and alternate with sepals, distinct or basally connate, convolute, basally often clawed, with 2-5 extrastaminal nectary glands or a disk. Stamens (4 or)5 or 10(or 15), in 1 whorl, alternate or opposite sepals, often some reduced to staminodes; filament bases connate into a tube. Ovary superior, with 2-5 carpels or seemingly 4-10-loculed by intrusion of a false septum, with 1 or 2 ovules per locule, placentation axile; styles as many as carpels, filiform, distinct or basally connate; stigmas subcapitate. Fruit usually a septicidal capsule or a drupe. Seeds with straight oily embryo and thin endosperm.

Huang Chengchiu, Huang Baoxian & Xu Langran. 1998. Linaceae. In: Xu Langran & Huang Chengchiu, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 43(1): 93-108.

Fourteen genera and ca. 250 species: worldwide but mostly in temperate regions; four genera and 14 species (one introduced) in China.

(Authors: Liu Quanru (刘全儒); Lihua Zhou (周丽华))