Undershrubs, glabrous or with simple hairs. Leaves alternate, scattered, simple, very shortly petiolate or sessile, ±terete or semiterete. Flowers 5-merous, terminal, usually solitary, sessile or shortly pedicellate; bracteoles present or absent. Sepals free, imbricate, broadly elliptic to suborbicular, coriaceous, often fleshy in centre, glabrous apart from marginal cilia, or rarely shortly pilose. Petals free, imbricate, erect and forming a tube, ovate-oblong, 2–4 times sepal length, subcoriaceous, glabrous. Stamens 5, antipetalous, exceeding petals, alternating with 5 slightly longer staminodes; filaments 3/4-united into a narrow cylinder, variably pilose adaxially, densely sericeous abaxially; anthers dorsifixed, included within filaments, minutely apiculate. Disc narrow. Ovary rounded; carpels 5, free, without a sterile apex, usually glabrous; style slender; stigma exserted, subglobular to patelliform. Seeds reniform, c. 3 mm long; sclerotesta smooth; hilum a large cavity in centre of adaxial margin; axial endocarp persistent.
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