Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Erect shrubs or small slender trees, rarely herbs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, decussate. Surfaces usually strigose [subvillous to villous, rarely glabrate]. Margins entire. 1 or 2[–4] pairs of lateral primary veins, marginal pairs often inconspicuous. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers usually terminal, simple or compound, bracteolate cymes or solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Hypanthium campanulate to ovoid or urceolate, strigose to bristly or rarely spreading glandular pubescent. Calyx lobes (4)5(–7), deciduous, often alternate with as many subulate or needle-like deciduous teeth. Corolla of 5(–7) petals; petals white, pink, or purple, usually obovate. Stamens twice as many as petals, dimorphic; anthers subulate, connective of larger anthers prolonged ventrally, modified at the filament insertion into a 2-lobed or bituberculate appendage, connective of the smaller anthers not prolonged but also modified ventrally into a bituberculate appendage. Ovary inferior, distinct at apex but adnate to the inner hypanthial wall by (4)5(–7) septa, 5–7-celled, placentation axile; ovules numerous; style simple; stigma terminal, punctiform to capitate.

Fruit: Berries coriaceous or somewhat fleshy; irregularly dehiscent. Seeds cochleate; 0.5–1 mm long; minutely punctate; endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

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