Leaves elliptic to oblong, sometimes ovate, glabrous; midrib impressed above, prominent beneath; nerves ascending and anastomosing in a looped marginal nerve, intramarginal nerve present. Inflorescence terminal or axillary and then at the end of the twigs, erect, poorly branched; axes more or less angular, puberulous; racemules with up to some tens of flowers. Flower-bracts 3 per flower, the outer ones often minute, persistent during anthesis. Flowers bisexual, 5(-4)-merous, pedicelled. Receptacle puberulous outside only, glabrescent in fruit, much accrescent and lignified in fruit. Sepals 5 (4), deltoid, more or less acuminate, evanescent in fruit. Petals 5 (4), valvate-connate or valvate-(or somewhat imbricate-)condupli-cate or imbricate-contorted, more or less connate or cohering and soon dropping simultaneously in the shape of an umbrella, flimsy, consisting of a wide basal part tapering into a narrower median part which widens into a whether or not well-developed, frayed apical part, induplicate and enveloping the stamens which are situated in pairs between two longitudinal lamellae on the inside of each petal. Stamens 10 (8), epi-and alternisepalous, (sub)equal, caducous; filaments (rather) thick and short, terete, to more or less flattened, tapering upwards; connective wide, large, conduplicate, mostly provided with a more or less distinct dorsal tubercle; anthers marginally at the apex of the connective, broad-linear, introrse. Ovary inferior, immersed in the receptacle, 3-(2-)carpellate, 6-(4-)celled, with free or towards the base somewhat connate septs, glabrous; style (subulate-) terete, shorter to distinctly longer than the receptacle, and whether or not protruding from the ripe bud, glabrous, evanescent in fruit; stigma punctate, minute. Ovules 1 or 2 per cell, two (one) by two (one) in vertical position inserted basally on either side of the 3 (2) stouter ones of the 6 (4) septs. Capsule half-inferior, big and woody, globose to ellipsoid, (sub)glabrous, when young provided with a fragment of the style, inside dehiscent down to the bottom with 2-6 valves of which only the upper parts protrude from that part of the capsule which is surrounded by and fused with the enlarged receptacle of which the rim often remains visible as an irregular more or less conspicuous rib; visible part of the valves triangular, coarse, solid, deltoid at cross-section, glabrous. Seeds few, in vertical position; seed depressed-ellipsoid, situated basally and obliquely in its thin, (narrow-)oblong wing 2-3 times as long as the body of the seed; raphe running from the basal insertion all along the wing margin back to the embryo.
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