Hololachna Ehrenberg.

Subshrubs or shrubs, to 80 cm tall, with numerous zigzag branchlets. Leaves subsessile, scale-like, shortly terete or linear, small, margin entire, often fleshy or leathery, with salt-secreting glands. Flowers solitary on lateral branches or on shortened branchlets, or clustered in lax racemes, hermaphroditic, 5-merous; bracts imbricate, slightly longer or shorter than corolla. Calyx subcampanulate. Petals deciduous or persistent, inside with 2 scale-like appendages in lower half, margin laciniate, serrate, or entire. Stamens 5 to numerous, free or filaments united into 5 fascicles at base, opposite to petals. Ovary orbicular or broadly ellipsoid; styles 2-5. Capsule cartilaginous, 3-5-septicidal; seeds long brown hairy.

Twelve species: N Africa, Asia, S Europe; four species (one endemic) in China.