Shrubs or trees; branches spreading or straggling, slightly angled, stout, hairy, becoming glabrate. Leaves opposite or fascicled [sometimes crowded on short lateral branchlets], even-pinnately compound; stipules usually deciduous, sometimes persistent, stiff or herbaceous, subulate or ovate, apex acute to acuminate, usually mucronulate, sometimes spinescent; petiolules absent or nearly so; leaflets [2–](4–)6–16, opposite, distinct, [narrowly] elliptic to linear-oblong, linear-spatulate, obliquely oblong, or obovate [ovate], somewhat unequal in size, basal and middle [apical] pairs largest, base oblique, apex obtuse or rounded [acute or retuse] and mucronate, [membranous] subcoriaceous or coriaceous, surfaces glabrous [hairy to glabrate]. Pedicels in axils of minute bracts [crowded on short lateral branchlets], erect or spreading. Flowers solitary to several [many] together, slightly irregular by twisting of petals; sepals deciduous, 4–5, slightly connate basally, green, unequal, margins undifferentiated, apex obtuse, hairy; petals ± persistent, 4–5, imbricate, spreading, twisted, blue to purple, rarely white [violet], drying yellow, obovate to elliptic, base clawed, apex rounded to lobed or notched; nectary annular; stamens 8–10, ± equal; filaments free, subulate or base slightly winged, sometimes with small basal scale; anthers sagittate or cordate; ovary on short stalk, 2–5-lobed, 2–5-locular, glabrous or hairy; ovules 8–10 per locule; style persisting, forming beak on fruit; stigma minute. Fruits capsules, [green] becoming greenish yellow to bright orange [-brown], obovoid to obcordiform, flattened, 2–5-lobed, 2–5-winged, base narrowed into short stalk, broadest apically, coriaceous, smooth or reticulate, septicidally dehiscent. Seeds 1 per locule, 1–5 maturing per fruit, yellowish brown, brown, or black, ellipsoid to ovoid, surrounded by thick fleshy red aril.
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