Low shrubs to small trees, unarmed, terrestrial, without raphides in the tissues. Leaves opposite or occasionally ternate, sessile to petiolate, entire, with higher-order venation not lineolate but sometimes the secondary and tertiary venation not well differentiated, without domatia; stipules interpetiolar and sometimes fused around the stem, triangular and often aristate, generally imbricated in bud, persistent or caducous. Inflorescences terminal or sometimes borne on short-shoots and apparently axillary, cymose to thyrsiform or reduced, 1-multiflowered, pedunculate to subsessile and frequently subtended by one or more nodes with stipules but without leaves, bracts developed, often fused in pairs especially subtending flowers. Flowers sessile to pedicellate, bisexual, homostylous, protandrous, fragrant, diurnal; hypanthia ellipsoid and sometimes flattened; calyx limb reduced to developed, subtruncate to 4-lobed, without calycophylls; corolla salverform, white to pink, red, yelllow or orange, internally glabrous or sometimes pubescent in throat, lobes 4, triangular, convolute in bud, without appendages; stamens 4, inserted in corolla throat, anthers ellipsoid to oblong, dorsifixed in basal portion, opening by linear slits, sometimes with apical appendage, exserted; ovary incompletely 2-locular, with ovules 1 in each locule, axile; stigmas 2, linear, exserted. Fruits drupaceous, subglobose to ellipsoid, juicy sometimes with leathery exocart, at maturity dark red to purple or black, with calyx limb persistent; pyrenes 2, hemispherical, bony or cartilaginous, whether dehiscent by preformed slits unknown; seeds 1 per pyrene, ellipsoid.