The presence of bracts and a fused androecium helps to distiguish this family from the Chenopodiaceae, to which it is similar. Inflorescence an axillary or terminal spike or head with colorful bracts subtending.
Flowers lack a corolla.
Some subtended by sterile flowers that are modified into bristles or hooks. Fruit an achene, berry, capsule or utricle. Seeds shiny and with perisperm, but lacking endosperm. Placentation is basal. Leaves simple and alternate or opposite.