Herbs, perennial, terrestrial, rhizomatous, stemless. Leaves many, basal; leaf blade appressed puberulent, base cuneate. Inflorescences umbel-like, dense, axillary, few-flowered cymes; bracts 2, opposite. Calyx actinomorphic; 4- or 5-sect from base; segments equal. Corolla purple to blue, actinomorphic, inside glabrous; tube rotate, not swollen, ca. 1/3 length of lobes, ca. 3 mm in diam.; limb deeply 4- or 5-lobed; lobe apex rounded to mucronulate. Stamens 4 or 5, adnate to corolla near base, equalling corolla; anthers basifixed, free, thecae parallel, not confluent, dehiscing longitudinally; connective not projecting; staminodes absent. Disc ringlike. Ovary narrowly ovoid, 1-loculed; placentas 2, parietal, projecting inward, 2-cleft. Stigma 1, terminal, punctiform to subcapitate, undivided. Capsule straight in relation to pedicel, narrowly ellipsoid, much longer than calyx, dehiscing loculicidally to base; valves 2, straight, not twisted. Seeds unknown.

* One species: endemic to China

Thamnocharis, along with Bournea Oliver, Tengia W. Y. Chun, and Conandron Siebold & Zuccarini, belongs to tribe Ramondieae Fritsch as defined by W. T. Wang (Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 69: 125-140. 1990). The Ramondieae are sometimes considered to be primitive in Gesneriaceae. They share (along with Ramonda L. C. Richard) actinomorphic corollas and all stamens fertile. Most other Gesneriaceae have zygomorphic corollas with at least one sterile stamen.