General description:- Herbs or shrubs.
Leaves:- Stipulate, usually pinnate.
Flowers:- Hermaphrodite, usually actinomorphic, (4-)5-merous. Disc present. Stamens usually twice as many as petals. Ovary superior, usually angled or winged.
Fruit:- Dry or fleshy.
FAGONIA
General description:- Herbs, often with spinose stipules.
Flowers:- Sepals 5, deciduous; petals 5, clawed, caducous. Disc inconspicuous; stamens 10. Ovary 5-angled.
Fruit:- A capsule; seeds with endosperm.
Key features:-
1) Leaves all opposite.
2) Sepals deciduous.
3) Stipules spinose.
TRIBULUS
General description:- Herbs.
Flowers:- Sepals 5, deciduous; petals 5, falIing off early (fugacious). Disc annular, 10-lobed; stamens 10. Ovary 5-lobed.
Fruit:- Splitting into 5 indehiscent (not splitting open to release their seeds) portions; seeds without endosperm.
Key features:-
1) Stipules not spinose.
2) Flowers yellow.
3) Fruit spiny on the back.
ZYGOPHYLLUM
General description:- Herbs, sometimes woody at the base.
Leaves:- Opposite. Sepals 4-5, deciduous; petals 4-5, clawed. Disc fleshy, angled; stamens 8-10. Ovary and style 4- to 5-angled.
Fruit:- A capsule; seeds with endosperm.
Key features:-
1) Flowers white.
2) Fruit not spiny.