Robust herbs, glabrate, stems stout, strongly 4-angled or winged. Leaves opposite, lanceolate, denticulate, basally auriculate and appearing connate per-foliate, sessile but the basal part of the lamina contracted to appear petiolar. Inflorescences short pedunculate axillary cymes, the peduncle short, the flowers in several many-flowered clusters, the bracts small, narrow, subtending the pedicels and the inflorescence branches. Flowers with the calyx narrowly cam-panulate, 5-dentate, costate; corolla tubular campanulate, the 4 crenate lobes similar, glabrous outside, pubescent at the mouth within; stamens 4, alike, the 2 thecae basally divergent, staminode wanting; stigma 2-lamellate, situated just below the anthers. Fruit a white fleshy berry, 10 cm across, faintly bisulcate, the style persistent or leaving a beak; seeds numerous, minute, subglobose, reticulate.
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