Hackelia

Perennial (in Victoria), or rarely annual herbs; stems erect or decumbent with retrorse hairs, with prominent thorn-like backward pointing statolith hairs in H. latifolia. Leaves basal and cauline, alternate, petiolate. Inflorescence with or without leaf-like bracts; flowers short or long-pedicellate, pedicel elongating and reflexed in fruit. Sepals 5, fused at base. Corolla actinomorphic, narrowly funnel-shaped with 5 saccate faucal scales in the throat opposite the lobes. Stamens included; anthers ± sessile, appendages short and acute. Ovary 4-lobed; style very short; stigma capitate. Fruit of 4 spiny mericarps splitting from a low, convex gynobase; spines closely packed and evenly distributed over the convex outer mericarp face, marginal spines free or nearly free, not fused at base forming a marginal wing; abscission scar on gynobase on an indistinct subapical 'beak'.