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Fls 4-merous; hypanthium obovoid; cal short; cor slenderly funnelform, the short lobes imbricate in bud; filaments short; ovary bilocular, with 1–3 pendulous ovules per locule; style elongate, long-exsert; stigma capitate; fr eventually splitting from the base upward into indehiscent nutlets; shrubs or small trees with fls densely crowded into globose pedunculate heads. 6, widespread.
Inflorescences terminal and axillary on both sorts of axes, consisting of many flowers in condensed heads, not surrounded by reduced leaves or bracts; receptacle pubescent; the flowers quite separate and with interfloral bracteoles.
Shrubs, trees or sometimes woody climbers, the growth axes differentiated, the orthotropic axis with leaves mostly in whorls of 3–4, the plagiotropic axis with leaves in pairs; terminal vegetative buds conical.
Ovary 2-locular; ovules solitary in each loculus, pendulous, attached at apex of septum, anatropous; style clearly exceeding corolla tube, with receptive area in distal part.
Seeds oblong with a large or small apical aril or aril absent; testa membranous, sometimes shortly winged above; radicle superior.
Infructescence a spherical head of small separate indehiscent fruits, each fruit drupe-like, containing two 1-seeded pyrenes.
Corolla hypocrateriform to narrowly funnel-shaped; lobes 4–5, erect or spreading, imbricate in bud.
Calyx tubes free from each other; limb-tube well developed; lobes 4–5, the fifth usually smallest.
Leaves petiolate; domatia present; stipules with or without a black gland at the apex.
Stamens inserted in the throat, included.
