Shrubs or small trees, with opposite leaves. Flowers solitary axillary or in short, few-flowered umbel-like racemes. Sepals 4 – 5, free in bud, fused to form turbinate-globose calyx tube adnate to the ovary, limb 4 – 5-dentate. Petals 4 – 5, free, white or pinkish-white, patent. Stamens numerous, multiseriate, free; anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Carpels 2 – 3, fused to form 2 – 3 loculed ovary, ovules many in each locule. Fruit a berry, enveloped within the calyx tube and crowned with the persistent calyx limb. Seeds with horseshoe-shaped, curved embryo.