Herbs or shrubs, with opposite or alternate, entire or dentate leaves and long, terminal spikes. Flowers sessile or somewhat immersed into the rachis, bracteate, small. Calyx-tube narrow, 5-lobed or toothed, persistent, not enlarged in fruit. Corolla-tube cylindrical, as long as the calyx; limb subequally or equally 5-lobed. Stamens 4 but only 2 anterior fertile and with divergent anther cells, included. Ovary 2-locular with 1 ovule in each locule; style filiform with capitate or subcapitate stigma. Fruit dry, linear-oblong, splitting into two, 1-seeded pyrenes; seeds linear, erect, exalbuminous.