Flowers 5-merous. Hypanthium thin-walled, cup-shaped, usually strigose. Sepals small; exterior teeth present and projecting. Petals small, ephemeral. Sta-mens isomorphic, but some frequently partly abortive; anthers linear; connective prolonged briefly at base and bearing three filiform or clavellate, ventral spurs, each of them about as long as the anther and two of them usually curved-ascending past the anther. Ovary 3-celled, superior. Fruit a 3-celled capsule of peculiar structure; outer walls of the ovary growing laterally into three prominent longi-tudinal wings and distally much beyond the actual summit of the ovary; upper part of the ovary expanding into three slender lobes extending into the wings; dehiscence apparently circumscissile between the summit of the ovary and the lateral walls; capsule invested to its margin by the accrescent calyx. Seeds minute, pyramidal, not cochleate. Caulescent shrubs with small flowers in dense secund spikes or spike-like racemes; leaves isomorphic but often unequal, the smaller one of each pair often deciduous.
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