The genus sensu stricto includes about 170 species of herbaceous annual or perennial plants and shrubs. The genus has a subcosmopolitan distribution throughout the tropical and warm temperate regions of the world. However, a recent DNA study failed to separate Cleome, Podandrogyne, and Polanisia from each other, so some taxonomists have abandoned the last two of these genera, treating them as part of Cleome sensu lato; in this case, Cleome contains about 275 species, the vast majority of the Cleomaceae.