Not a very large family, widely distributed; ours are herbs, sometimes shrubby, with no stipules; flowers perfect, irregular, resembling those of the Pea Family, but not like them in structure; sepals five, the two at the sides large and colored, like "wings," the upper sepal forming a "keel"; petals three, more or less united into a tube; stamens usually eight and united; ovary superior, two-celled, with a broad, curved stigma.

There are many kinds of Polygala.