Shrubs or trees, unarmed. Raphides absent. Leaves opposite, sometimes with domatia; stipules caducous, interpetiolar, triangular, acute. Inflorescences terminal and sometimes in axils of uppermost leaves giving tripartite appearance, cymose and usually rounded-corymbiform, pedunculate, bracteate with bracts caducous. Flowers pedicellate, bisexual, distylous, generally showy. Calyx limb deeply 5-lobed, lobes well developed to subleaflike, usually deciduous shortly after anthesis and often before corolla. Corolla red to pink or white, salverform; tube prolonged and in long-styled form expanded in throat to enclose anthers, with upper part of throat spreading with lobes at anthesis, glabrous inside; lobes 5, imbricate (and apparently quincuncial) in bud, rounded, margins usually crisped and slightly irregular, sometimes with a lamellate basal appendage on each side. Stamens 5, inserted in upper part of corolla tube, included in long-styled form or partially to completely exserted in short-styled form; filaments short; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary 2-celled, ovules numerous in each cell on axile placentas; stigmas 2, linear, included in short-styled form or exserted in long-styled form. Fruit capsular, obovoid to ellipsoid, smooth, septicidally dehiscent from apex for half or completely, woody, becoming deflexed, with calyx limb caducous; seeds numerous, small, fusiform, flattened, prolonged into narrow wings at each end; endosperm fleshy; embryo minute, slightly clavate; cotyledons obtuse.
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