Herbs, usually short-to long-lived perennial, occasionally annual, stout, pubescent to glabrate, from slender and spongy or massive and woody taproots. Stems erect to ascending, unarmed, with glutinous bands on internodes. Leaves in pairs, ± equal in size in each pair, long petiolate, thick and fleshy, base ± symmetric. Inflorescences terminal, pedunculate, widely paniculate, flowers ultimately borne singly, in subumbellate clusters, or in glomerules; bracts persistent, not accrescent, 1-2 at base of pedicel, distinct, minute, lanceolate, dark, opaque. Flowers bisexual, chasmogamous; perianth radially symmetric or slightly bilaterally symmetric, tubular-funnelform, constricted beyond ovary, tube abruptly flared to 5-lobed limb; stamens 3 or 5, exserted; styles exserted beyond stamens; stigmas peltate. Fruits biturbinate or fusiform, constricted beyond base, apex umbonate, stiffly coriaceous, smooth or irregularly wrinkled, glabrous, with 10 narrow ribs and an equatorial flange or wing, or 5-angulate with a low rib between angles and no equatorial flange, or fusiform and smooth or with 10 low, linear ribs and sometimes with incomplete equatorial low, linear ridge, eglandular or glandular-puberulent.
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