Shrubs or small trees with terete, light to dark brown branches. Leaves simple or unifoliolate, opposite or spirally arranged, petiolate, small to very large, char-taceous to leathery, elliptic, lanceolate to oblanceolate, acute to acuminate, entire, glandular dotted, usually glabrous. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, corymbose, cymose, or paniculate, with a short to long peduncle. Flowers large, often showy, bisexual, 5-merous; calyx large, the lobes united only at the base, sometimes unequally 5-cleft, persisting into fruit; corolla gamopetalous, apparently zygo-morphic, the corolla tube straight or curved, cylindric, almost equaling to slightly exceeding the calyx lobes, the lobes unequal, spreading, pink to red; stamens 5, all fertile or 2-3 sterile, the filaments adnate to the corolla tube, anthers lanceo-late to oblong linear, erect; ovary globose, 5-carpellate, ovules 2, collateral or superposed, the ovary enclosed in an annular disc, the style filiform, the stigma capitate or 5-lobed. Capsules 5-locular, the carpels connate only at the base, the individual carpels oblong, rounded at the apex, 2-valved; endocarp elastic and becoming cartilaginous; bivalvate, light straw colored; seeds 2 per carpel, angular, usually oblong; embryo curved with little endosperm.
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