Herbs, annual or perennial, sometimes shrubs or trees. Stipules absent or small. Leaves alternate or whorled, basal or cauline, pinnate or palmate; leaflets often folded together at night, margin always entire. Inflorescences umbellate, cymose, or racemose, or flowers solitary. Flowers bisexual, regular, 5-merous, usually heteromorphic, heterostylous. Sepals 5, distinct or basally connate, imbricate, rarely valvate. Petals 5, sometimes basally slightly connate, convolute. Stamens 10, in 2 whorls of 5; outer whorl usually with shorter filaments, opposite petals; filaments connate near base; anthers 2-celled, with longitudinal slits. Ovary superior; carpels 5 and fused; placentation axile, each locule with (1 or)2 to several ovules; styles 5, distinct; stigmas capitate or shortly 2-cleft. Fruit a loculicidal capsule or a berry. Seeds often with basal aril involved in explosive ejection of seed from capsule; endosperm fleshy.

Huang Chengchiu, Huang Baoxian & Xu Langran. 1998. Oxalidaceae. In: Xu Langran & Huang Chengchiu, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 43(1): 3-17.

Six to eight genera and ca. 780 species: mostly in tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres but extending into temperate regions; three genera (one introduced) and 13 species (four introduced) in China.

(Authors: Liu Quanru (刘全儒); Mark F. Watson)