Herbs, perennial. Leaves alternate, digitately 3-foliolate (occasional leaves simple). Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic, axillary, solitary or in few-flowered racemes. Sepals 4, basally connate. Petals 4 or 5, imbricate in bud, margin entire. Stamens 8 or 10, distinct. Disk columnar. Gynoecium 2(or 3)-carpelled; ovaries connate in ± their basal 2/3, otherwise contiguous to divergent; ovules several per locule; style lateral, of 2 or rarely 3 coherent stylar elements; stigma capitellate. Fruit a loculicidal capsule, with carpels connate as in ovary; endocarp thinly cartilaginous, adnate to mesocarp in dehisced fruit. Seeds reniform; seed coat leathery, tuberculate; endosperm copious; embryo curved; cotyledons elliptic, flattened; hypocotyl superior.

● One species: China.

(Authors: Zhang Dianxiang (张奠湘); Thomas G. Hartley)