Small evergreen shrubs, not spinescent, softly pubescent with simple hairs. Leaves alternate, entire, shortly petiolate; stipules free or very shortly connate at base between the petiole and stem, ± persistent; lamina discolorous, glabrous above, villous beneath, becoming sparsely hairy or glabrous with age. Inflorescences mostly terminal, densely contracted many-flowered cymes surrounded by large broad persistent brown bracts. Flowers bisexual, 5-partite, sessile or subsessile. Hypanthium long-tubular, fusiform, simple-hairy outside. Sepals erect to spreading, densely villous, persistent in fruit. Petals erect, cucullate, shortly clawed, smooth; claw not adnate to base of stamen filament. Stamens enclosed in and subequal to the petals, erect to incurved. Disc forming a narrow undulate ring around the ovary summit, free, glabrous, becoming circular in fruit. Ovary inferior or largely inferior, densely hairy on summit, carpels 3; style entire, glabrous, prominently papillose for most of its length, stigma 3-lobed. Fruit a schizocarpic capsule, c. half-inferior or largely inferior; fruitlets crustaceous, splitting longitudinally along their inner surface and over the summit to release the seed. Seeds uniformly coloured above a darkened base; aril moderately large, translucent.
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