Leaves elliptic or obovate to (obovate-)oblong, glabrous; midrib thickish, ± flat above, prominent beneath; nerves ± straight, anastomosing in an indistinct marginal nerve. Inflorescence terminal or axillary to the highest leaves, erect, poorly branched; axes flattened, puberulous; racemules with at least a few tens of flowers. Flower-bracts caducous. Flowers bisexual, 5-(4-)isomerous, almost sessile. Receptacle in-and outside puberulous, accrescent. Sepals triangular, persistent. Petals unguiculate, with suborbicular, irregularly lobed lamina, in bud covering the stamens as a hood, soon caducous. Stamens persistent; filaments terete, somewhat flattened; connective about orbicular, not conduplicate; anthers inserted transversally, somewhat below the upper margin of the connective, oblong to broad-linear, introrse. Ovary half-inferior, the lower part adnate to the receptacle, the top part semiglobose, puberulous, (3-), 4-or 5-carpellate, (3-), 4-or 5-locular, septs not connate; style subulate, somewhat longer than the ovary, puberulous, persistent; stigma capitate. Ovules 3 per locule, inserted in vertical position, basally between the septs. Capsule almost inferior, broad-ellipsoid, small, pericarp chartaceous, puberulous, inside dehiscent down to the bottom with (3) 4 or 5 valves of which only the upper ¼ protrudes from that part of the pericarp that is surrounded by and fused with the enlarged receptacle, at the top often kept together by the non-splitting stigma. Seeds 3 per locule (1 or 2 sometimes not developed), small, in vertical position; seed narrow-ellipsoid, flat, situated centrally in its more or less rectangular, narrow, membranous wing almost 2 times as long as the body of the seed; raphe running close to the embryo.
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