Shrubs or trees, glabrous or pubescent with simple or branched hairs. Leaves solitary, simple, petiolate, entire. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, racemose or paniculate, sometimes clustered in leaf axils, often bracteate or bracteolate. Flowers 5-merous. Calyx campanulate or tubular. Corolla long tubular; tube sometimes expanded or contracted around anthers, sometimes pubescent abaxially; limb lobed, usually spreading. Stamens inserted at various levels in corolla tube; filaments sometimes pubescent or appendaged at or below point of insertion; anthers dehiscing longitudinally; disc mostly evident. Ovary 2-locular; ovules few to several, rarely to 20. Style slender; stigma entire or 2-lobed, rarely exserted. Fruit a berry, mostly white or blackish, globose, ovoid, or oblong, often juicy. Seeds 1 or several, oblong; embryo straight or slightly curved; cotyledons ovate, oblong and much wider than radicle, or cylindric.

About 175 species: North America, South America; three cultivated for ornament in China.