Herbs or shrubs. Leaves stipulate, petiolate; leaf blade entire or lobed. Flowers axillary or aggregated on twig tips, shortly pedicellate. Epicalyx lobes 10. Calyx 5-lobed, connate at base, coherent with staminal column at base. Staminal column with many anthers, apically 5-lobed. Ovary 6-10-loculed; ovules 1 per locule; style branches 6-10, connate at base; stigma capitate. Capsule loculicidally and septicidally dehiscent, breaking up into separate valves. Seeds reniform.

Decaschistia has been placed in a separate tribe from the rest of the Hibisceae on the basis of the distinctive capsule with 6-10 1-seeded locules that is both loculicidal and septicidal and breaks up into separate valves when mature. Preliminary molecular data (Pfeil & Crisp, Austral. Syst. Bot. 18(1): 49-60. 2005) indicate that Decaschistia is nested within Hibiscus (q.v.).

About ten species: tropical Asia; one species in China.