Simple-stemmed shrub, or undershrubs, ⅓-3 m tall, branches with pith. Leaves alternate, orbicular, glabrous, coriaceous, entire, smooth, gland-dotted; nerves and veins parallel; petiole long, thick, winged, clasping the stem, leaving annular scars, glandular inside. Flowers solitary in the axil of a bract, erect, in leafy panicled often fork-branched racemes not much exceeding the leaves. Bracts sheathing, enclosing 2 similar but smaller boat-shaped bracteoles, all persistent, glandular inside. Calyx persistent, wholly or only upwards with 5 prominent ribs, folded between, tubular, lobes short. Corolla white, longer than the calyx, easily detached circumscissile at the base, lobes elongate-spathulate, subconcave 3-nerved, mutually connate at the base in a short tube together with the stamens; tube annular or barrel-shaped, after anthesis when pushed out splitting upwards from the base. Stamens inserted on the apex of the tube, anthers basifix c. as long as the corolla, sagittate at the base; cells ± parallel, halfway free, latrorse; connective a narrow furrow between the cells; pollen 90-120 μ diam. Styles free, articulate at the base; stigma small, punctiform-capitate, reaching just above the stamens. Capsule linear, long-exserted, pentagonal, dehiscing finally along the angles.
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