Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs, rarely trees or perennial herbs, covered with stellate and often glandular hairs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite or sometimes alternate. Margins entire or serrate–dentate, rarely lobed. Sometimes clasping the stem. Stipules present, usually leafy, suborbicular and auriculate or reduced to a transverse line.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal or axillary, thyrsoid, racemose, subverticillate, or paniculate cymes. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or unisexual, 4-merous. Calyx campanulate or subcampanulate, less often cup-shaped or obconical, tube usually longer than lobes. Corolla salverform or campanulate, the tube straight or curved. Stamens 4, adnate to corolla tube, included, rarely exserted, equal; filaments glabrous, staminode 0. Ovary superior, 2(–4)-locular; ovules several to many per locule; style short to long; stigma often large, clavate, capitate, or less often 2-lobed.

Fruit: Septicidal capsules; 2-valved sometimes fleshy and indehiscent. Seeds numerous; small; often winged.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: