Description from
Flora of China
Collyris Vahl.
Herbs epiphytic or epilithic. Stems and branches fleshy, usually climbing by adventitious roots, sometimes also twining, or hanging. Leaves opposite or partly in whorls of 3 or 4, fleshy [sometimes leafless]. Inflorescences extra-axillary, small; rachis thick, often branched, eventually elongated, producing a series of often umbel-like groups of flowers. Flowers mostly very small. Calyx with 5 basal glands. Corolla white, red, or violet, ovoid to urceolate, with a narrow mouth, fleshy; lobes valvate in bud, short, often hairy. Corona lobes 5, slender, inserted on gynostegium, erect or ascending, apex entire, notched, 2-cleft, or with recurved arms. Anthers erect, with apical membrane overlying stigma head; pollinia 2 per pollinarium, margin translucent, caudicles enlarged at apex, erect. Follicles lanceolate or cylindric.
About 80 species: tropical and subtropical Asia and Oceania, five in China.