Home
Erect perennial herbs or small shrubs, with milky latex. Lvs opposite or verticillate, sometimes the uppermost alternate, simple. Fls in axillary cymes; cymes umbellate. Calyx small, deeply lobed, glandular inside. Corolla valvate in bud, rotate, deeply 5-lobed; segments becoming reflexed at anthesis. Corona of 5 erect or spreading scales, hood-like, sometimes curved over the anthers, with 2 lateral teeth. Stamens inserted near base of corolla; anthers with an incurved apical membrane; pollinium solitary and pendulous in each cell, attached to a gland on the stigma. Carpels free; stigma 5-angled. Follicles smooth, bristly or softly spinose, inflated.
Shrubs or subshrubs, erect. Leaves opposite or whorled, short petiolate. Cymes extra-axillary, umbel-like, pendent, many flowered. Calyx glands 5 or more. Corolla rotate, deeply lobed; lobes patent or reflexed, valvate. Corona lobes 5, inserted on gynostegium, erect, hood-shaped, apex with 2 recurved or straight adaxial cusps, hood not appendaged. Filaments connate into a tube; anther appendages incurved; pollinia 2 per pollinarium, oblong, pendulous. Stigma head depressed. Follicles broadly ovoid, inflated, pericarp usually with long, soft spines or bristles. Seeds oblong.
