Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Epiphytic or terrestrial shrubs, sometimes scandent.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite to verticillate and decussate. Blades equal or anisophyllous. 5–15–pliveined or pinnately veined. Petiolate or sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal or axillary, pedunculate panicles or glomerate cymes, rarely fasciculate, inflorescences subtended by deciduous bracts and bracteoles. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Hypanthium narrowly campanulate to cylindrical, variously pubescent to glabrous. Calyx truncate, obscurely toothed or 4–6-lobed. Corolla of 4–6, white, red, or pink, ovate to obovate or lanceolate. Stamens 8–12, equal, subequal, or dimorphic; anthers linear or subulate, connective not or barely prolonged but modified dorsally into a spur and ventrally into 2 upturned subulate appendages. Ovary inferior, 4–6-celled, placentation axile; ovules numerous; style simple; stigma terminal, punctiform to capitate.

Fruit: Fruit a subglobose berry crowned by persistent calyx lobes. Seeds subovate to subfalcate; endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: