Annual to perennial herbs, undershrubs or shrubs, mostly pubescent. Leaves subsessile to long petiolate, stipulate, alternate, entire to toothed or lobed. Flowers axillary, solitary, fasciculate or by reduction of terminal leaves raceme or panicle, sessile or pedicellate. Epicalyx generally absent. Calyx campanulate. Corolla yellow, white, pink or orange. Staminal column usually included, hairy or glabrous, divided above into numerous antheriferous filaments. Carpels 5-10 (-14); ovary as many loculed as the number of carpel, each locule 1-ovuled; style branches the same number as of carpels; stigma capitate. Fruit usually globular pubescent or glabrous, awned or muticous; mericarps smooth or retriculate, dehiscent or indehiscent. Seed 1 per mericarp, glabrous or hairy; cotyledons curved.