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Subshrubby herbs or small shrubs, glabrous or less often pubescent.Leaves opposite, rarely in whorls of 3, shortly petiolate; stipules connate, hairy within, often at length deciduous.Flowers fairly small, in axillary usually opposite cymes or fascicles, often few-flowered; bracts and bracteoles present.Calyx lobes 5, linear to ovate, erect, obtuse, ± leaf-like, sometimes exceeding the corolla tube.Corolla apiculate to distinctly appendiculate in bud; green or greenish-yellow to greenish-white, glabrous or pubescent; tube cylindrical with a ring of deflexed hairs inside, and the throat usually slightly hairy; lobes reflexed, often apiculate.Stamens inserted at the throat, the anthers exserted.Ovary 3–5-locular with one pendulous ovule per loculus; style slender, exserted, the stigma cylindrical, smooth or ± sulcate, obscurely 5-lobed.Fruit globose or obovoid with 2–5 pyrenes crowned by the persistent calyx limb.