Lianas or scandent shrubs. Leaves opposite, often with translucent dots. Cymes terminal or axillary, forked, sessile or short pedunculate. Flowers small. Sepals ciliate at margin; basal glands usually absent. Corolla subrotate; tube short; lobes erect patent, overlapping to right. Corona usually double, outer lobes 5, reduced to longitudinal ridges below corolla lobe sinus; inner lobes 5, inserted on gynostegium, usually laterally compressed, straight or incurved. Filaments free or connate at base; anthers with short, incurved apical appendages; pollinia minute, 4 per pollinarium, erect, globose to ellipsoid, retinaculum minute, translator arm absent. Ovaries glabrous. Stigma head capitate or short conical. Follicles terete, smooth. Seeds ovate.

About 80 species: mostly in Africa, especially Madagascar (62 species), 2-7 species in tropical and subtropical Asia and Australia; six species in China.

Klackenberg (Kew Bull. 47: 595-612. 1992) included all six Chinese species in two subspecies of Secamone elliptica R. Brown: S. elliptica subsp. minutiflora (Woodson) Klackenberg for S. minutiflora and S. elliptica subsp. elliptica for the other five species.