Woody plants, mostly shrubs or trees, sometimes scandent; branches and branchlets tetragonal or subterete, glabrous or variously pubescent. Leaves This content downloaded from 192.104.39.2 on Thu, 9 May 2013 15:26:14 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions102 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN [VOL. 60 simple, usually decussate-opposite, rarely subopposite or ternate, deciduous, ex-stipulate, mostly petiolate, glabrous or variously pubescent, entire or dentate. Inflorescences cymose, determinate, the cymes often paniculate, umbellate, capitate, reduced to few or solitary flowers, axillary or terminal. Flowers actino-morphic, hypogynous, hermaphroditic but usually conspicuously declinous; calyx gamosepalous, more or less campanulate, cyathiform or tubular, apically truncate and entire or 4-or 5-toothed or-lobed, accrescent, greatly incrassate and indurated in fruit; corolla gamopetalous, infundibular or hypocrateriform, mostly white or yellow, the tube cylindric, the limb equally 4-or 5-parted, the lobes imbricate in prefloration; stamens 4 or 5, equal, isomorphic, inserted below the mouth of the corolla-tube, included or exserted, alternate with the corolla-lobes, the filaments mostly filiform, the anthers often reduced but sometimes still polleniferous in pistillate flowers; pistil one, the style terminal or subterminal, single, capillary, mostly glabrous, the stigma bifid, its branches elongate and awl-shaped, the ovary superior, perfectly or imperfectly 4-celled, each cell 1-ovulate, the ovules lateral or sub-apical, hemianatropous. Fruit drupaceous, mostly fleshy, globose or sub-globose, (1-3-)4-seeded, sometimes fewer by abortion; seeds without endosperm.
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