Small trees or shrubs, sometimes spiny. Leaves opposite, simple, exstipulate. Flowers showy, solitary, axillary or terminal, bisexual, 5-7-merous. Calyx campanulate, adnate below, thick and coriaceous, lobed at the top, valvate, persistent. Petals free, imbricate. Stamens numerous, persistent. Ovary inferior, multilocular, loculi in two layers; placentation axile in the lower and parietal in the upper loculi. Style simple. Fruit baccacous, crowned with the lobes of the calyx, rind leathery. Seeds numerous, pulpy and juicy.