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Subshrubs, shrubs, vines, or trees. Stems erect, spreading, or creeping, glabrous or hairy. Leaves persistent or deciduous; petiole absent or present; blade elliptic or ovate to oblong-lanceolate or spatulate, membranous to coriaceous, margins entire or serrate, plane or, sometimes, revolute, surfaces glabrous or hairy; venation brochidodromous. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, racemes, usually 2-10-flowered, sometimes flowers solitary, (leafy); (bracteoles absent, present in sect. Oxycoccos). Flowers: sepals 4-5, connate basally; petals 4-5(-6), connate nearly their entire lengths, sometimes distinct or nearly so, white or cream to pink, bronze, or green, rarely red, corolla globose, cylindric, urceolate, or campanulate, lobes shorter to longer than tube; filaments straight, flat, glabrous or hairy, without spurs; stamens 8-10, included (sometimes exserted); anthers with or without awns, dehiscent by pores (pores laciniate in sect. Polycodium); pistil 4-5-carpellate; ovary inferior, 4-5-locular or pseudo 10-locular; stigma capitate. Fruits baccate, ovoid to globose, fleshy. Seeds 2-40, ellipsoid; testa reticulate. x = 12.
Shrubs or rarely trees, often rhizomatous. Leaves persistent or deciduous, entire or serrate, pinnately veined or rarely plinerved; petioles short. Inflores-cences racemose, developing from the buds of the previous season, rarely only 1-2 flowered, the flowers borne in the axils of the bracts or the leaves; pedicels usually bibracteolate, either articulated or continuous. Flowers with the hy-panthium cylindric to globose; calyx lobes (4-)5, rarely obsolete; corolla gamo-petalous, white, greenish, red or yellowish, cylindric, urceolate or campanulate, the lobes 4-5, rarely parted almost to the base; stamens 8 or 10, the anthers lacking awns and with or without dorsal spurs, tapering upward into tubules and opening by a terminal pore or rarely an oblique cleft; pollen in tetrads and without viscin strands; stigma small, simple or somewhat capitate, the ovary completely or partly inferior, 4-5 (-falsely 10)-locular, the placentation axile. Berry 5 to many seeded, crowned by the persistent calyx lobes and capped by the conspicuous nectariferous disc.
Shrubs or small trees, terrestrial or epiphytic. Leaves evergreen or deciduous, rarely pseudoverticillate, petiolate, margin entire or serrate. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, racemose, fasciculate, or solitary flowers. Bracts and bracteoles persistent or caducous, the latter small, basal, rarely apical; pedicel expanded towards apex or not, articulate, rarely continuous. Flowers 5-, rarely 4-merous. Calyx limb lobed or toothed. Corolla urceolate, campanulate, or tubular, lobed or toothed, usually to base of limb; lobes erect or recurved, mostly shorter than tube, rarely longer or petals apparently free. Stamens rarely 4, usually included; anthers with 2 spurs at anther-filament junction or not; thecae with tubules opening by a terminal pore or introrse slit. Disk annular. Ovary inferior, usually 8-or 10-pseudoloculed by false partitions; locule with many ovules; stigma inconspicuous, truncate. Fruit a several seeded globose berry. Seeds ovoid, small, testa hard or mucilaginous.
Fls 4–5-merous, epigynous (seldom only half-epigynous); cal spreading or appressed; cor tubular or ovoid to campanulate, shallowly to deeply lobed; stamens 8 or 10, commonly included; anthers with 2 pollen-sacs, each sac opening by a pore at the end of a terminal tubule; style slender, usually surpassing the stamens; fr a many-seeded berry, commonly 4–5-locular, or sometimes 8–10-locellar; evergreen or deciduous shrubs or small trees with entire or serrulate lvs and solitary or racemose fls terminal or in the axils. (Cyanococcus, Oxycoccus, Polycodium) 400+, widespread. Spp. 9–15 form a difficult complex
Small trees or shrubs, evergreen or deciduous. Leaves alternate. Flowers in axillary or terminal racemes, often with bracts, or solitary and axillary, 4– 5-merous (5-merous in our species), epigynous. Calyx lobes small, persistent in fruit. Corolla gamopetalous, rotate to urceolate-globose, lobes minute to almost free. Stamens 8– 10, anthers at apex with tubular horn opening by terminal pore. Ovary inferior, 4– 5-locular; ovules few; style single. Fruit a succulent berry.
Racemes few-to many-flowered, very rarely in part in the same specimen reduced to a solitary flower; each flower whether or not subtended by a bract, the latter whether or not foliaceous or persistent; each pedicel whether or not provided with 2 ± caducous bracteoles. Anthers whether or not 2-spurred dorsally; tubules opening by introrse ± oblique or terminal pores.
Corolla campanulate, thick-fleshy, deeply 5-partite, seemingly consisting of two layers, the outer one thick, split at the lobes to nearly the base of the corolla, the inner one thinner, less deeply split, forming a kind of decurrent membranous marginal zone towards the sinuses. Tubules opening by introrse rather long slits. Berry apparently strictly 5-locular.
Inflorescence reduced to a single axillary flower. Peduncle, if any, very short, articulated with the pedicel which bears two or several small bracts (bracteoles) at the base. Corolla of various shape. Anthers whether or not 2-spurred dorsally; tubules short in general, transversely or obliquely cut at the apex. Leaves generally small to very small.
Racemes (very) slender, few-to many-flowered, rarely reduced to a single axillary flower. Corolla small, urceolate or rarely almost tubular, membranous, shortly 5-lobed. Anthers with a pair of short, sometimes rather inconspicuous dorsal spurs; tubules ± as long as the cells, opening with introrse longitudinal slits for ± half their total length.
Racemes ± lax, sometimes reduced to few-flowered fascicles or very rarely to a solitary flower; pedicels slender, elongate. Bracteoles inserted at the base of the pedicels, minute and very early caducous, practically absent. Calyx lobes (laciniae) long-subulate, (much) longer than the calyx tube.
Corolla campanulate, 5-partite =h halfway; anthers with a pair of long dorsal spurs, the tubules ± double as long as the cells, opening by elongate introrse slits which attain 1/3-1/2 of the total length of the tubules.
Stamens 8–10, the anthers with each theca prolonged at the apex into a tubular horn opening by a terminal pore, anther appendages present or absent.
Corolla gamopetalous, rotate to urceolate–globose, from very shallowly divided to so deeply divided that the lobes are almost free.
Flowers borne on axillary or terminal, usually bracteate, racemes, or solitary in the axils of the leaves, 4–merous or 5–merous.
Bracts, when present, usually small and scale–like but sometimes leaf–like.
Leaves alternate, subsessile or shortly petiolate, evergreen or deciduous.
Ovary inferior, 4–5–locular, ovules few (2–15 per loculus); style single.
Fruit a succulent berry; corolla, stamens and style shed in fruit.
Calyx lobes usually small, persistent in fruit.
Calyx and corolla actinomorphic and epigynous.
Small trees, shrubs or sub–shrubs.
