Corolla white, yellowish or tinged red, salver-shaped, tomentose to woolly outside; tube with throat and sometimes upper half inside densely barbate with white hairs; lobes lanceolate, hairy outside, glabrous inside.
Ovary 4–10-locular, each locule with 2(3) collateral erect anatropous ovules; style filiform, glabrous, exserted or included; stigma lobes 4–10, filiform, straight or twisted, somtimes cohering.
Fruits usually red, globose or depressed globose, drupaceous, containing a woody or bony 4–10-celled putamen, which is entire or slightly to deeply incised between the locules; locules 1-seeded.
Leaves opposite, petiolate; blades lanceolate to ovate or oblong-elliptic, often curved; stipules ovate or ovate-triangular, divided into 3–5 lobes.
Flowers hermaphrodite, heterostylous, (4)5-merous in terminal corymbs; bracts small or minute.
Stamens inserted at the top of the corolla tube, exserted or included.
Seeds ellipsoid, compressed, with membranous testa and fleshy albumen.
Calyx tube campanulate, the limb cupular, unequally 5–7-toothed.
Shrubs or small trees.
Disk mostly glabrous.