Evergreen or summer-green perennials, roots fleshy and cylindric or tuberous. Stems erect or climbing, branched, often woody. Leaves reduced, scale-like, often with basal spine, with solitary or fascicled needle or leaf-like cladodes characteristic for each sp. Flowers small, campanulate, usually axillary or terminal, solitary or in small fascicles, or racemose on special branches lacking cladodes; pedicels articulate; segments 6, ± similar, free or nearly so, spreading above. Berry 1-several seeded. Seeds globose or flat on one side. Spp. c. 300, of Africa, Europe, Asia and Malaysia. Adventive spp. 4.