Small trees or shrubs with white latex which may turn blue when exposed. Branchlets glabrous; not lenticellate. Leaves alternate; petiolate; blade subcoriaceous, entire, secondary venation almost perpendicular to the midrib and closely spaced; with colleters in the axils which produce a sticky exudate. Inflorescence terminal but appearing leaf-opposed; cymose; flowers 5-merous. Calyx without colleters inside. Corolla lobes sinistrorse; mature corolla salverform; lobes ovate, slightly falcate. Stamens inserted in the upper half of the corolla tube, completely included in the tube; filaments short; anthers free from style head, fertile for their entire length. Disk small and annular. Gynoecium 3-5-carpellate, congenitally syncarpous at base, then with an apocarpous section, and then apically postgenitally syncarpous; each carpel with 2 ovules, only one of which may develop; style filiform. Fruit pendulous, the apocarpous parts of the gynoecium fused together at the base and elongating to form thin stalks of each fruiting carpel, these carpels also remaining fused at the apices to form a star-like structure, the whole forming an open-sided basket-like effect; the fruiting carpels eventually drying and disintegrating to release the seeds. Seeds solitary in each carpel, simple.
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