Clavija Ruiz & Pav.

Shrubs or small trees, unbranched or sparsely branched, evergreen. Leaves pseudoverticillate; short-to long-petiolate; blades medium-sized to large or very large, margins entire, serrulate or serrate, sometimes spinose-serrate; extraxylary sclerenchyma present or sometimes lacking. Inflorescences lateral racemes, solitary or in small groups, borne on stems among and beneath leaves, few-to many-flowered, those of female plants usually shorter than those of male plants; bracts lanceolate-ovate, inserted at junction of pedicel and rachis, rarely ascending on pedicels. Flowers 5-or sometimes 4-merous, uni-or bisexual, dioecious, gynodioecious, androdioecious, or rarely hermaphroditic; calyx greenish, lobes suborbicular, margin erose; corolla pale to dark orange, crateriform, not glandular-punctate, lobes broadly ovate-oblong or suborbicular; staminodes oblongoid to ovoid, inserted at mouth of corolla tube; stamens in non-female flowers united to a tube, in female flowers separated, filaments glabrous, anthers ovoid, obtuse-apiculate at apex; ovary in female flowers ovoid or broadly ovoid, in male or functionally male flowers narrowly ovoid to linear, ovules usually few, style shorter than to as long as ovary, stigma truncate. Fruits yellow, subglobose, pericarp thin and brittle when dried, or sometimes woody; seeds large, obtuse-angled, light to dark brown.