Oxybasis Kar. & Kir., Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou [14]: 738 (1841)

Sukhorukov, Alexander P., Liu, Pei-Liang & Kushunina, Maria, 2019, Taxonomic revision of Chenopodiaceae in Himalaya and Tibet, PhytoKeys 116, pp. 1-141 : 35

3. Oxybasis Kar. & Kir., Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou [14]: 738 (1841)

Type: Oxybasis minutiflora Kar. & Kir., Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou [14]: 739 (1841) [= O. chenopodioides (L.) S.Fuentes, Uotila & Borsch, Willdenowia 42(1): 15 (2012)].

Description.

Annuals, branched from the base or with a single stem, prostrate or erect, glabrous or covered with bladder hairs. Leaves alternate, entire to lobate, rhombic, triangular or oblong, sometimes lanceolate, green from both sides or whitish abaxially. Inflorescence racemiform with lateral branches mostly appressed to the stem; flowers arranged in dense glomerules. Perianth of 3-5 free or diversely connate, hyaline or greenish segments (both perianth forms are present in some species), keeled or not. Flowers bisexual or sometimes female (lateral flowers). Stamens 2-5. Stylodia 2. Pericarp thin, smooth, mamillate or rarely papillate. Seeds usually small (up to 1.2 mm in diameter), red or black. Embryo horizontal or vertical and both embryo positions may be present in one individual (spatial heterospermy). Structural (latent) heterospermy expressed in the varying thickness of the seed coat is common in almost all representatives; outer cell wall of the testa cells with stalactites.

Twelve to fourteen species in the temperate and mountainous parts of Eurasia, Africa and the Americas. One species in Himalaya and Tibet.