Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs, shrubs, climbers or trees, producing betalains but not anthocyanins; roots sometimes fleshy to tuberous; stem frequently swollen at nodes, sometimes spiny
• Leaves usually opposite, sometimes alternate, whorled or nearly so, often unequal, simple, entire to sinuate, mostly petiolate; stipules 0
• Inflorescences terminal or axillary cymes, panicles, or corymbs; bracts and bracteoles mostly present, sometimes very small and early caducous; bracts often enlarged, sometimes petaloid, free or connate, sometimes forming a calyx-like, 1-many-flowered involucre
• Flowers bisexual or sometimes unisexual, regular, rarely irregular, often brightly coloured
• Perianth: tube campanulate, funnel-shaped, tubular or urceolate, often resembling a corolla, upper part mostly caducous after anthesis, lower part mostly persistent, enclosing mature fruit; lobes (3)4 or 5(-7), small, herbaceous, carnose, or petaloid, induplicate-valvate in bud, persistent, often accrescent, sometimes circumscissile above base
• Stamens 1-10(-40); filaments mostly unequal, free or connate into a cup at base; anthers 2-thecous, tetrasporangiate, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, latrorse, partly introrse, almost basifixed, included or exserted
• Ovary superior, 1-carpellate, 1-locular, sometimes stipitate; ovule 1, basal, stalked, erect, hemi-anatropous to anacampylotropous; integuments 2, rarely 1; style short to elongate, or rarely 0, filiform; stigma small, simple or multifid
• Fruit an achene or thin-walled nutlet, enveloped by persistent, variously modified perianth base and forming a so-called anthocarp, or fruit rarely free, indehiscent, fleshy or coriaceous, often glandular and viscid, sometimes with prickles, occasionally ribbed or winged; pericarp inconspicuous
• Seed 1, erect, exarillate; endosperm scanty; perisperm usually abundant, mealy, rarely gelatinous; embryo straight or hooked

Nomenclature:

• Nyctaginaceae
  • Jussieu: 90 (1789) name conserved
  • Brown: 421 (1810)
  • Choisy: 425 (1849)
  • Hooker: 1 (1880)
  • Heimerl: 14 (1889)
  • Fiedler: 572 (1910)
  • Heimerl: 86 (1934)
  • Stemmerik: 450 (1964)
  • Bittrich & Kühn: 473 (1993)
  • Mabberley: 494 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 30, species ± 390, distributed in warmer parts of the world with concentration in the New World, also in Africa, Asia, Mascarene and Pacific Islands
• Southern Africa: Genera 5 (1 exotic), species 20 (2 exotic). Species and varieties of Bougainvillea Comm. ex Juss. are widely cultivated in the warmer parts of southern Africa

References:

• BITTRICH, V. & KÜHN, U. 1993. Nyctaginaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• BROWN, R. 1810. Nyctagines Juss. Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae van-Diemen 1. Johnson & Co., London
• CHOISY, J.D. 1849. Nyctagineae. In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 13,2. V. Masson, Paris
• FIEDLER, H. 1910. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Nyctaginaceen. Botanische Jahrbücher 44
• HEIMERL, A. 1889. Nyctaginaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,1b
• HEIMERL, A. 1934. Nyctaginaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edn 2, 16c
• HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Nyctaginaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• JUSSIEU, A.L. DE. 1789. Nyctagines, les Nictages. Name conserved. Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita. Herissant & Barrois, Paris
• MABBERLEY, D.J. 1997. The plant-book, edn 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• STEMMERIK, J.F. 1964. Nyctaginaceae. Flora Malesiana, Ser. 1, Vol. 6,3

Resources:

• Key to Nyctaginaceae genera

• Nyctaginaceae genera: