Flowers usually 5-merous. Hypanthium obconic to campanulate. Calyx-tube more or less prolonged, erect to flaring; sepals usually short or obsolete; exterior teeth often conspicuous. Petals obovate to oblong, inequilateral, usually retuse. Stamens isomorphic or nearly so; filaments stout; anthers erect, linear or subulate, always more or less incurved at the summit; connective elevated into a low ridge along the thecae and often gibbous near their base, below the thecae neither pro-longed nor appendaged. Ovary half-inferior, 3-to 5-celled; style stout, glabrous or pubescent; stigma capitate, often large. Fruit a many-seeded berry. Shrubs or even small trees with broad leaves often unequal in each pair and in many species bearing formicaria at the summit of the petiole or base of the blade; flowers medium-sized, white to pink, in terminal panicles.
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