Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Woody perennial shrubs or undershrubs; often stellate-hairy; leaves almost always alternate, entire, filiform to broadly flattened, usually somewhat ericold; stipules absent or minute and caducous.

Flowers in cymes which may be reduced to a single flower, sometimes irregular, bisexual; sepals 5, persistent, imbricate; petals 5, deciduous, imbricate, usually yellowish; stamens few to numerous; gynoecium superior, of few 1-celled carpels with ascending anatropous ovules and separate styles; raphe central.

Fruit dry, dehiscent or not; seeds arillate, with crustaceous testa; embryo minute, at the base of the albumen.

Distribution:  10 genera and about 400 species, especially in warm regions.

Biology: No text

Author: Prepared by J.P. Jessop