Shrubs, glabrous or with simple, branched or stellate hairs. Leaves simple, alternate, sessile or shortly petiolate. Flowers in few–many-flowered cymes or corymbs, rarely solitary, 5-merous. Sepals valvate, slightly united at base and continuous with pedicel apex. Petals valvate, usually free (united in L. sympetalum), usually glabrous; apex inflexed. Stamens 10, free; filaments terete, glabrous; anthers cream to yellow (rarely pink), versatile, deeply retuse; terminal gland or apiculum usually absent (present in L. ellipticum). Ovary usually supported on a short gynophore. Carpels usually 5, with sterile apex; style slender, glabrous; stigma minutely lobed. Cocci apiculate to shortly rostrate. Seed subreniform, c. 3 mm long; adaxial margin ±straight; outer testa thin, smooth; sclerotesta smooth; hilum linear to narrowly elliptic; raphe fleshy, basal or subbasal, with a thin leathery to crustaceous glossy covering; chalazal opening basal or subbasal, obscured by raphe; placental endocarp thick, persistent.
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