Flowers perfect, subsessile to pedicellate, unibracteate and bibracteolate. Sepals 5, discrete, hypogynous, concave, subequal, many-ribbed. Petals absent. Stamens 5-8, hypogynous, connate about half their length forming an exappendiculate tube shorter than the ovary; filaments flattened; anthers 4-locellate, introrse, medially attached. Ovary subglobose, 1-locular, multi-ovulate; ovules cam-pylotropous; funicles flattened or filiform, exarillate, with free central placenta-tion; style 1; stigmata mostly 3-6, at anthesis scarcely distinguishable, ultimately reflexed. Fruits at first baccate, later developing into circumscissile or irregularly dehiscent capsules; seeds cochleate-orbiculate, black, lustrous, reticulate. Glabrate sparingly branched erect suffruticose herbs or shrubs. Leaves alternate, entire, petiolate, lanceolate to rhombic-ovate, glabrous to minutely strigillose, deciduous. Inflorescences of terminal and axillary racemes, panicles or corymbs, with or without foliar leaves.
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