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Trees, shrubs (often scandent) or herbs. Leaves large or small, alternate or more rarely opposite, sometimes crowded apically on the branches, sessile with narrow base or stalked. Inflorescences terminal or lateral, usually dichotomously or trichotomously branched, composed of unilateral cymes without bracts. Flowers tetra-or pentamerous. Corolla with a short or elongate, cylindrical or sometimes campanulate tube and spreading lobes usually conduplicate in bud. Stamens included in the corolla, with very short filaments, sometimes mucronulate at apex. Pistil: style almost lacking, stigma with a fertile, basal ring and a sterile apical portion, often bilobed at apex. Fruit either a white drupe with juicy mesocarp (sect. Tournefortia and sect. Tetrandra) or dry, with a corky, vesicular mesocarp, endocarp breaking up into two 2-seeded or four 1-seeded pyrenes. Fig. 12. Fig. 13.
Shrubs, climbing shrubs, trees, or herbs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, entire. Cymes terminal or axillary, corymbose, ebracteate. Calyx 4-or 5-parted, not changing in fruit; lobes narrow. Corolla white or pale green, usually funnelform; tube pubescent outside, usually exceeding calyx; throat unappendaged; lobes 4 or 5, overlapping or valvate in bud, spreading at anthesis. Filaments short, inserted on corolla tube; anthers ovate to oblong, mucronate or obtuse at apex. Disc slightly convex or sometimes nearly cupular. Ovary 4-loculed; ovules 1 per locule, pendulous. Style terminal; stigma entire or 2-cleft, base fleshy, ringlike, inflated. Drupes with watery, sticky, or corky mesocarp, endocarp divided at maturity into 2 2-seeded or 4 1-seeded mericarps, sometimes 1 seed sterile. Seeds oblique; cotyledons ovate or elliptic.
Shrubs or woody climbers with mostly broad petiolate leaves. Flowers in scorpioid cymes, spike-like, often arranged in dichotomous panicles. Calyx usually 5-lobed, persistent. Corolla mostly white or yellowish, 4–5-merous; tube cylindrical with spreading limb. Stamens usually 5, inserted in the tube, included, the filaments short. Ovary 4-locular; stigma sessile or borne on a distinct terminal style, peltate or conic, the stigmatic surfaces lateral, often bifid at the apex. Fruit a lobed or unlobed drupe, breaking up at maturity into 2–4 bony nutlets or pyrenes, each 1–2-seeded and often with 0–2 empty cavities; endosperm thin; cotyledons flat.
