Unarmed shrubs or vines, mostly hemi-epiphytes; stems mostly slender with a large, often fistulose pith, the twigs often an expanded cicatrix from fallen leaves and inflorescences. Leaves simple, entire, mostly clustered at the ends of the twigs; minor leaves wanting. Inflorescences appearing terminal at the ends of twigs, solitary or variously paniculate, racemose or corymbose, some-times pendant below the leaves, peduncles short and stout in some species and in others very long and slender; pedicels mostly either short or very long. Flowers inconspicuous or showy, calyx 5-35 mm long, fleshy and globose or tubular, split into 5 short or long lobes, glabrous; corolla valvate anid mostly pointed in bud, 7-100 mm long, mostly campanulate, actinomorphic, the tube short and the limb (cup) well-developed, angled near the base and sometimes tubular, the lobes short, recurved or not; stamens 5, equal, the filaments straight, inserted near the base of the limb, the anthers elongate, rarely linear, 4-loculed, dehiscing longitudinally, sometimes apiculate, exserted or not; ovary superior to partly inferior, sometimes short stipitate with a nectariferous disc partially or wholly represented near the base, 2-loculed, the ovules many. Fruit a conical or obovoid leathery berry which approximates the length of the calyx lobes; seeds somewhat flattened, often bent; embryo curved or almost straight.
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