Pernettya Gaudich.

Straggly to densely bushy shrubs with depressed, sprawling to erect stems. Leaves alternate, persistent, coriaceous or membranaceous, denticulate or serru-late, short petiolate. Inflorescence with flowers usually solitary in the axils of the upper leaves or rarely in axillary racemes; pedicels bracteate, nodding, bibracteolate, indistinctly articulated just beneath the calyx. Flowers with the calyx persistent with a short tube and 5 lanceolate to elliptic, acute lobes; corolla tube urceolate, cylindric to ovoid or subglobose, white or white tinged with pink or rose, the lobes 5, less than 1/1o as long as the corolla tube, reflexed; stamens 10, included well within the corolla, the filaments slightly dilated below, glabrous, the anthers mostly oblong or oval, dehiscing apically by terminal pores, 2 slender awns terminating each anther sac; stigma punctate, the style slender, cylindric, persistent, the ovary superior, 5-loculate, usually subspheroid. Berry subglobose to globose, somewhat fleshy and even succulent; seeds numerous, small, angular, compressed.