Scandent or subscandent shrubs or woody lianas. Stem and branches almost terete or obscurely tetragonal. Leaves simple, decussate-opposite, petiolate, exstipulate, reticulate-veined. Inflorescence cymose and usually thyrsoid. Flowers numerous, bracteate, pedicellate or subsessile, zygomorphic, bisexual, hypogynous; bracts small or minute, or some of the lowermost foliaceous. Calyx of 5 fused sepals, persistent, non-accrescent. Corolla of 5 fused petals, deciduous; tube narrow-cylindric, broadened at the apex, straight or curved, longer than calyx; lobes subequal. Stamens 4, didynamous, usually much exserted, alternate with the corolla-lobes, epipetalous, inserted in the corolla-throat; filaments filiform; anthers dorsifixed, ovate or ovate-oblong, 2-lobed, lobes parallel or divergent in the free lower half. Ovary bicarpellary, syncarpous, 4-locular, with one ovule in each cell, ovule axile, placentation at or above the middle; style terminal, exserted, filiform, glabrous, with 2 short stigmatic lobes. Fruit a schizocarp, oblong or ellipsoid-oblong, exserted from the fruiting-calyx, 4-valved, separating into 4 narrow mericarps, substipitate, the valves narrowly obovoid, their margins inflexed or involute from above or from slightly below the middle, placentiferous, each holding one seed by its inflexed margin, dehiscing from the base or from the middle, freeing a persistent, naked, central column (i.e. carpophore), forming 1-seeded mericarps which are extended basally into a short or linear wing; seeds oblong, erect, narrow, exalbuminous; fruiting calyx enclosing almost lower half of fruit.
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