Herbs or subshrubs. Leaves petiolate; stipules filiform; leaf blade papery, basal veins usually 3, usually with linear appendages at or near base, margin serrate, serrulate, or crenate. Flowers solitary or several arranged in cymes, axillary or extra-axillary, bisexual, yellow. Sepals 4 or 5. Petals 4 or 5; glands absent. Stamens 15 to many, on androgynophore, free; staminodes absent. Ovary 2-5-loculed; ovules many per locule; style short; stigma peltate or disk-shaped, entire or lobed. Fruit a capsule, cylindrical or globose, sometimes angled, 2-5-valved, loculicidally dehiscent. Seeds many.

Corchorus oenotheroides H. Léveillé is the basionym of Indigofera oenotheroides (H. Léveillé) Lauener in the Fabaceae (see Fl. China 10). Corchorus polygonatum H. Léveillé is a synonym of Tricyrtis pilosa Wallich in the Liliaceae (see Fl. China 24: 152. 2000).

Several species have been grown as a fiber crop. Corchorus capsularis and C. olitorius are the source of the important fiber jute.

Between 40 and 100 species: primarily in tropical regions; four species in China.