Shrubs or small trees. Branchlets subterete, rarely 4-angled, sometimes 4-winged. Leaves opposite, petiolate or rarely sessile; petiole base with a short ocrea; leaf blade margin entire. Inflorescences axillary, sometimes directly from main branches, 1- to many-flowered, cymose, congested or not; bracts scalelike to sepal-like. Flowers 5-merous. Sepals mostly free or nearly so, inside usually with glands at base. Corolla campanulate to rotate, tube thinly fleshy; lobes thick, imbricate or contorted and then overlapping to left in bud. Stamens inserted at corolla mouth, exserted, recurved after anthesis; filaments usually short; anthers suborbicular to narrowly ovate, often with a distinct appendage. Ovary 2-locular, with many ovules per locule. Style often very short; stigma clavate, ellipsoid, or subglobose, ± as large as ovary. Capsules ellipsoid to globose, 2-valved, septicidal or septifragal, many seeded. Seeds brown to black, ellipsoid to subglobose, concave on hilar side, minutely warty, embedded in a juicy yellow to red pulp; embryo small; endosperm papery to starchy.

About 20 species: E and SE Asia, N Australia, Mascarenes Islands, Pacific Islands; one species in China.