Azanza Alefeld; Bupariti Duhamel du Monceau; Parita Scopoli; Pariti Adanson.

Trees or shrubs; plants glabrous or pubescent, with an indumentum of scales or stellate hairs. Leaves simple; stipules very slender; leaf blade ovate, entire or lobed, margin entire, often with abaxial foliar nectaries. Flowers solitary (rarely in small cymes), axillary, large and showy. Epicalyx lobes 3-5, minute, caducous after flowering, sometimes subtended by 3-merous nectaries. Calyx cup-shaped, truncate to 5-lobed. Corolla campanulate; petals 5, yellow [or white or pink], with or without dark purple basal spot. Staminal column antheriferous throughout; apex 5-toothed, usually included. Ovary 5-loculed; ovules several per locule; style rod-shaped, 5-grooved; stigma 3-5-sulcate or rarely 3-5-lobed, decurrent. Capsule 3-5-locular, globose or pyriform, leathery or woody, dehiscent or indehiscent, sometimes slightly fleshy. Seeds 3 to many per locule, obovoid, glabrous or hairy.

Molecular data (Seelanan et al., Syst. Bot. 22: 259-290. 1997) suggest that Thespesia may not be monophyletic and reinforce the morphologically based observation of Fryxell (Nat. Hist. Cotton Tribe, 1979) that there are significant discontinuities between the two sections currently recognized: T. sect. Thespesia and T. sect. Lampas (Ulbrich) Borssum Waalkes. A representative of each section occurs in China.

About 17 species: tropical Africa, America, Asia, Australia; two species in China.