Eurotia Adanson.

Shrubs or subshrubs, covered with stellate and dendroid hairs in combination with simple (unbranched), uniseriate hairs. Leaves alternate, solitary or in fascicles, petiolate to subsessile; leaf blade flat, linear-lanceolate to ovate, base cuneate, rounded, or subcordate, margin entire, apex obtuse or acute. Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious or dioecious). Male flowers several in glomerules, forming an interrupted spike or subcapitate inflorescence, without bracts; perianth segments 4, ovate or elliptic, membranous, abaxially hairy, basally connate; stamens 4; anthers oblong; filaments linear, exserted. Female flowers axillary, 1 or 2 together; bractlets 2, united into a tube in proximal half or at base (here termed “female floral tube”), compressed, ellipsoid or obovoid, abaxially 4-fascicular villous or shortly hairy in fruit; perianth absent; ovary sessile, ellipsoid, hairy; style short; stigmas 2, pubescent. Utricle ellipsoid or narrowly obovoid, compressed; pericarp membranous, free from seed. Seed vertical; testa membranous; embryo semi-annular or horseshoe-shaped; radicle inferior.

Much controversy surrounds the nomenclature of this genus. The widely applied name Ceratoides Gagnebin should be rejected in favor of Krascheninnikovia. When establishing the new genus Ceratoides, Gagnebin (Acta Helv. Phys.-Math. 2: 59. 1755), instead of citing a description, cited a pre-Linnaean work by Tournefort, in which Ceratoides included the annual plant now known as Ceratocarpus arenarius Linnaeus, the type of Ceratocarpus Linnaeus. Consequently, Ceratoides in the strict sense is a nomenclatural synonym of Ceratocarpus.

Six or seven species: mainly in Eurasia, one or two species in W North America: four species (one endemic) in China.