Hymenodictyon Wall.

Shrubs or trees [or sometimes epiphytic or lianescent], usually deciduous, unarmed; bark notably bitter. Raphides absent. Leaves opposite, usually with domatia; margins rarely irregularly lobed and/or serrate; stipules deciduous, interpetiolar, triangular to ligulate, entire or glandular-serrate, usually strongly reflexed. Inflorescence terminal and/or axillary, spiciform to racemiform or sometimes paniculate with axes racemiform or spiciform, many flowered, erect to pendulous, pedunculate, bracteate with 1-4 leaflike to petaloid, stipitate, veined basal bracts and other bracts usually reduced [or sometimes well developed]. Flowers sessile to shortly pedicellate, bisexual, monomorphic. Calyx limb deeply 5(or 6)-lobed. Corolla white, green, yellow, or red, funnelform or narrowly campanulate, inside glabrous; lobes 5, valvate in bud, apparently often ascending or remaining partially closed at anthesis. Stamens 5, inserted in corolla tube below throat, included; filaments short, flattened; anthers basifixed, sagittate at base. Ovary 2-celled, ovules several to numerous in each cell on axile placentas; stigma fusiform or capitate, well exserted. Infructescences with pedicels and sometimes peduncles often elongating and/or becoming reflexed. Fruit capsular, ellipsoid-oblong to obovoid or ellipsoid, loculicidally dehiscent into 2 valves, woody to cartilaginous, with calyx limb deciduous; seeds numerous, medium-sized, flattened, with broad, membranous, shortly erose, basally 2-lobed wing; endosperm fleshy; embryo small; cotyledon oblong or orbicular.