Deciduous small shrubs or trees, the branches with very unequal internodes, some slender and elongated but the others at the apices very condensed; petiolar scars prominent Leaves petiolate, tufted at the ends of the shoots, opposite, the blades thin, with pubescent domatia; stipules scarious, persistent. Flowers fragrant, solitary, terminal, 5–(6–8)-merous, surrounded at the base by scarious scales. Calyx-tube cylindrical-turbinate; free tubular part of limb very short; lobes elongate, persistent. Corolla turning black on drying; tube short to very long, cylindrical, the apical part narrowly to broadly funnel-shaped, tube pubescent towards the base; lobes contorted, overlapping to the left. Stamens sessile, the apices of the anthers just about reaching the throat mouth; pollen grains in tetrads, golden yellow. Ovary with 2 placentas forming 2 locules; ovules numerous; style swollen into an ellipsoid swelling at the level of the anthers with 2 closely adnate stigmatic lobes. Fruit globose or pyriform, crowned with the persistent calyx-lobes; peduncle accrescent. Seeds irregularly lenticular, compressed.
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