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Annual, or biennial or (not in Australia) polycarpic perennial herbs, usually glabrous, sometimes minutely scaberulous. Flowers (4-or) 5-merous. Calyx tube narrowly funnel-shaped, longer than lobes; lobes triangular-ovate. Corolla ±campanulate; tube shortly cylindrical; lobes ±spreading, 3-veined; plicae present. Stamens equal; filaments basally adnate to lower half of corolla tube; anthers basifixed, not twisted after anthesis, dehiscence longitudinal. Nectaries at base of ovary, poorly developed. Ovary abruptly contracted at apex; ovules few to numerous; style absent or very short; stigmas 2, persistent, papillose; gynophore absent to prominent in fruit. Capsule variously shaped, ±flattened, ±exserted from persistent perianth. Seeds few (numerous in many non-Australian species), reticulate-striolate.
Infl. axillary and/or terminal, of small to large cymes, often umbelli-form, often corymbose, or fls solitary. Fls 5-(4)-merous, sts involucrate. Calyx cut to different levels, sinus acute to rounded. Corolla ± deeply lobed, us. campanulate to rotate, mainly white, sts veins purplish, rarely more fully coloured. Stamens < corolla. Ovary 1-loculed, sessile or very shortly stipitate, with 2 parietal placentae. Style short to obsolete; stigmas 2, recurved; seeds small, ∞, globose. Capsule very shortly stipitate or sessile, ellipsoid, 2-valved. Glab. herbs, perennial or occ. annual, with opp. lvs.
