Citation: Tieghem, Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr. 43:83 (1896).

Derivation: After Pieter Willem Korthals, 1807-1892, a Dutch botanist.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Small perennials mostly less than 15 cm high, glabrous except for multicellular thick-walled hairs between the flowers; stems green or yellowish, articulated at the nodes, terete or compressed or most often strongly flattened in one plane forming a cladode; leaves rudimentary, opposite, forming a border mostly less than 1 mm high around the flower clusters.

Flowers developing successively in monoecious clusters on the shoulders of the internodes, separated by hairs; male flowers globular to obconical, c. 0.5 mm diam., attenuate into a short stipe up to 0.5 mm long, with 3 persistent perianth-segments; anthers 3, 2-locular, introrse, united into a synandrium with a common apical pore through which the pollen is released; female flowers globular or pear-shaped, usually less than 0.5 mm diam., with 3 perianth-segments persistent on the fruit.

Fruit pear-shaped or ellipsoid, seldom reaching 2 mm long; seed discus-shaped, c. 1 mm diam.

Distribution:  About 30 species from south-east Asia to New Zealand, Pacific Islands and Indian Ocean islands; 6 species in Australia.

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available