Common Name: SPIDERFLOWER FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, shrub, often ill-smelling. Leaf: generally 1-palmate, generally alternate, generally petioled; stipules generally minute, often bristle-like or hairy; leaflets 0 or 3--7. Inflorescence: raceme, head, or flowers 1, expanded in fruit; bracts generally 3-parted below, distal simple, or 0. Flower: generally bisexual, radial to +- bilateral; sepals generally 4, free or fused, generally persistent; petals generally 4, free, +- clawed; stamens generally 6, free, exserted, anthers generally coiling at dehiscence; ovary superior, generally on stalk-like receptacle, chamber generally 1, placentas generally 2, parietal, style 1, persistent, stigma generally minute, +- head-like. Fruit: 2 nutlets or generally capsule, septicidal; valves generally 2, deciduous, leaving septum (frame-like placentas) behind; pedicel generally +- reflexed to spreading.
Genera In Family: 13 genera, +- 150 species: widespread tropics to arid temperate. Note: Treated as Capparaceae in TJM (1993); species of Carsonia, Oxystylis, Peritoma, and Wislizenia moved to Cleomella (Roalson et al. 2015).
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert E. Preston & Staria S. Vanderpool
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin & Thomas J. Rosatti

Habit: Annual, sticky, glandular-hairy. Leaf: leaflets 3--5, oblanceolate to ovate. Inflorescence: raceme, terminal, dense. Flower: bilateral; sepals +- free, deciduous; petals generally unequal, obovate, clawed, notched at tip; stamens 8--32, unequal, anthers not coiling; ovary +- sessile, subtended on 1 side by a prominent nectary. Fruit: dehiscent in upper 1/2; valves persistent; receptacle not stalk-like. Seed: many.
Etymology: (Greek: many, unequal, from stamens) Note: Taxonomic position problematic.
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert E. Preston & Staria S. Vanderpool
Reference: Inda et al. 2008 Pl Syst Evol 274:111--126