Subshrubby herbs, shrubs or small trees. Leaves opposite or rarely in whorls of 3, usually glabrous. Stipules sometimes united into a sheath. Flowers 4-5-merous, heterostylous, in branched terminal panicles. Calyx tube ribbed; lobes triangular or linear. Buds and corolla lobes often with longitudinal narrow wing-like keels. Corolla white, pink or purple; tube cylindric.
Ovary 2-locular; ovule solitary in each loculus, erect from the base.
Fruits succulent, with 2 pyrenes; pyrenes opening by 1 dorsal slit.
Worldwide: 42 species in the Old World tropics, especially Madagascar Caprivi: 2 cultivated taxa. |
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