Erect shrubs or small trees. Leaves large, opposite decussate, somewhat fleshy. Flowers in termainal or axillary umbelloid cymes. Calyx deeply 5-lobed. Corolla 5-lobed, lobes free about for c. 2/3 of the way or less, tips usually purple. Corona of 5 fleshy laterally compressed lobes radiating from the gynostegium, each with a recurved vesicle at the base and a pair of auricles at the apex. Anthers short and broad with a solitary pollinium pendulous in each cell. Stigma broad, pentagonal. Follicles inflated with an air sac round the seed producing region. Seeds comose.