Shrubs. Stems ascending or spreading. Bark exfoliating in sheets, strips, or strings. Branches ascending, spreading, or descending; twigs with simple trichomes. Leaves deciduous, opposite; petiole present; blade ovate or broadly ovate to obovate, rhombic, or suborbiculate, herbaceous, margins usually crenate to dentate, rarely entire, plane; venation pinnate. Inflorescences terminal, cymes, 2–35-flowered, sometimes flowers solitary; peduncle absent or present. Pedicels present. Flowers bisexual; perianth and androecium perigynous; hypanthium completely adnate to ovary, hemispheric, not ribbed in fruit; sepals persistent, 4–5, erect, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, sparsely to densely strigose, canescent, or sericeous; petals 4–5, imbricate, spreading, white or pink, obovate or oblanceolate, base clawed, sometimes obscurely, surfaces hairy; stamens 8 or 10; filaments distinct, dorsiventrally flattened, gradually or abruptly tapered from base to narrow apex, apex not 2-lobed; anthers depressed-ovate; pistil 3–5-carpellate, ovary to 1/2 inferior, partially 3–5-locular initially, becoming 1-locular; placentation axile proximally, parietal distally; styles persistent, (2–)3–5, distinct. Capsules ovoid or conic, indurate, dehiscence basipetally septicidal to middle of fruit. Seeds 25–50 per locule, orangish brown or tan, ellipsoid. x = 16.
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