Drapetes Banks ex Lam.

Dwarf shrubs with creeping, radiant, or ± tufted and glabrous stems, sending out fibrous roots from beneath, the lower part of the stems marked with prominent scars of fallen leaves. Leaves subopposite or spiral, more or less appressed, sessile, narrow-linear, convex on the dorsal side, plane or slightly concave on the ventral side, with 5-9 striated longitudinal nerves; apex obtuse, with a tuft of hairs; margins ciliate especially in the young ones. Flowers aggregated in small, sessile, terminal heads almost entirely immersed in the leaves; pedicels short, articulated at the apex, articulation hairy. Floral tube continuous, or circumsciss above the ovary (S. American sp.), usually pilose outside, glabrous inside, caducous after anthesis. Calyx lobes 4, slightly spreading. Petaloid appendages inserted at the mouth of the tube, consisting of 1-2 episepalous scales (or 0). Stamens 4, free from the tube at the mouth, alternate with the lobes; filaments slender, basifixed, usually longer than the anthers; anthers oblong or sometimes subglobose. Pistil sometimes abortive. Fertile pistil usually included, rarely exserted. Ovary ellipsoid or slightly obovoid, 1-celled, pilose or hairy in the upper half or at the apex; style linear, lateral, usually longer than the ovary, caducous after anthesis; stigma capitate and papillose when young. Fruit a small drupe with a thin-fleshy pericarp. Seed similar in shape to the fruit, closely enveloped by the endocarp.

On dry grassy, or rocky places in the mountains, in the tropics almost confined to subalpine and alpine heights.