Perennial herbs with single unbranched stems clothed with petiole remnants; rootstocks horizontal or subvertical. Basal leaves broadly ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, long-petiolate; cauline leaves elliptic to narrowly lanceolate the lower long-petiolate, the upper sessile. Flowers in large ± lax branched panicles with reduced bracts or lower leaf-like, the individual cymes 8–15-flowered, simple or branched, pedunculate; pedicels elongating considerably in fruit. Calyx divided nearly to the base into 5 equal lanceolate persistent but scarcely accrescent lobes. Corolla white, sometimes tinged mauve or yellowish, campanulate or subrotate; lobes ovate, obtuse. Throat-bosses exserted, trapeziform, oblong-triangular or semilunar, usually emarginate. Filaments inserted in middle of corolla-tube, ± exserted; anthers almost medifixed, versatile. Nectary scales ±10 at base of corolla-tube, each with 2 divergent horns. Ovary indistinctly 4-lobed; style filiform, ± equalling the stamens; stigma small, capitate. Nutlets 1–4, all equal or one much exceeding the others, either wingless and densely glochidiate or with a broad cartilaginous ± undulate wing but lacking glochids.
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