Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, rarely sprawling shrubs, usually glabrous, pubescence when present usually of unicellular hairs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, rarely opposite. Surfaces usually evergreen, occasionally deciduous. Margins entire or toothed. Petiolate or rarely sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers usually solitary in the leaf axils, occasionally in terminal panicles or racemes, often subtended by 2 to several bracteoles. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or occasionally unisexual (and then plants dioecious); usually large and showy. Calyx of (4)5(–7) sepals; sepals imbricate, usually connate at base, occasionally distinct, persistent, sometimes deciduous. Corolla of (4)5(to numerous) petals; petals distinct or connate at base, imbricate or convolute, sometimes the outer ones occasionally becoming sepal-like. Stamens (5 or 10)numerous, distinct or connate into a ring, or in 5 bundles opposite and usually adnate to petals; filaments with nectaries at base; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits or rarely in Eurya by short, terminal slits. Ovary superior to partly or completely inferior, (2)3–5(–10)-carpellate, with as many cells, placentation axile; ovules (1–2)to numerous per cell, anatropous or somewhat campylotropous; styles distinct or connate and lobed.

Fruit: Loculicidal or occasionally septicidal capsules; or indehiscent and dry or fleshy. Seeds 1 to numerous per cell; ± winged; endosperm scanty or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: