Unarmed, erect herbs or subshrubs with simple or dendritic hairs; stems often fistulose. Leaves simple, entire or sinuate dentate, membranaceous, mostly petiolate; minor leaves mostly present and smaller than the major leaves. In-florescence axillary, mostly a condensed, many-flowered raceme, or by ob-solescence of the peduncle a fascicle, rarely paniculate, solitary or few-flowered; pedicels slender, often holding the flowers beneath the leaves and recurving to hold the fruits above them. Flowers 4-5(-6)-merous, mostly small, the calyx cyathiform, the apex truncate or with umbos or teeth, sometimes splitting with age; the corolla mostly rotate, salverform to tubular-campanulate, the relative length of the tube variable, glabrous or puberulent outside, inside mostly with a ring of pubescence at the level of stamen insertion; stamens equal or nearly so, filaments mostly inserted at or above the middle of the corolla tube, mostly pubescent, the anthers yellow or purple, ovoid or oblong, the connective in most species prolonged into a small apicule; ovary glabrous or pubescent, 2-loculed, the placenta proliferated, ovules many. Fruit a juicy, many-seeded berry, mostly bright colored, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes partly enveloped by the accrescent calyx; seeds compressed-discoid or fabiform, the surface with a crystalloid reticulate covering over the edges and in some species over all sides.
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