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Trees or shrubs, with slim branchlets. Leaves opposite, coriaceous or mem-branaceous, simple, with caducous interpetiolar stipules. Flowers perfect and regular, solitary to fascicled in the axils of the upper leaves, bracteate, with articu-lated pedicels. Calyx coriaceous, 4-to 7-lobed, valvate, hairy or glabrous, cam-panulate to spreading. Petals unguiculate and often elaborately fimbriate or lacerate, inflexed, pubescent or glabrous. Stamens 8-40, inserted on or outside the disc, filaments equal to or longer than the calyx. Ovary 2-to 4-locular, hypogynous or slightly adnate to the base of the calyx, surrounded by a fleshy or membranaceous disc, each locule with 2 pendulous ovules; style filiform or stout. Fruit a fleshy capsule, septifragal; seeds 2-4, arillate.
Leaves decussate or rarely verticillate, petiolate, stipulate; leaf-lamina ± elliptic to obovate or ovate, rarely circular, serrate (especially from near the middle towards the apex) to entire, leathery to membranous, glabrous to densely tomentose.
Petals linear or spathulate, divided above (usually laciniate), clawed, glabrous to pilose, inflexed in bud, inserted on the margin of the disk or at the bottom of the calyx-tube (at the base and outside the disk).
Ovary superior to subinferior, (l)2–4(5)-locular, each locule 2-ovulate, hairy to glabrous; style simple (very rarely divided), filiform to ± thick, minutely lobed to entire at the apex, often persistent.
Stamens 8–45, inserted on the margin of, or inside or outside, the disk; filaments filiform; anthers glabrous or rarely pubescent, dehiscing longitudinally.
Flowers bisexual, pedicellate (pedicels articulate, with or without a pair of minute connate bracteoles, inserted usually at their base) to sessile.
Seeds 2–4, compressed or angular, arillate; testa leathery; endosperm fleshy; embryo straight; cotyledons flat.
Calyx pilose or glabrous; calyx-tube ± campanulate, sometimes ± adnate to the ovary; calyx-lobes 4–7.
Disk deep, 8–45-lobed or low, fairly conspicuously lobed (or ? absent).
Inflorescence 1-many-flowered, fasciculate, lax or congested, axillary.
Fruit a fleshy or leathery, septicidally dehiscent capsule.
Small shrubs to tall trees, without aerial roots.
