Erect shrubs, unarmed, usually fetid when bruised. Raphides present. Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3 or 4, sometimes with domatia; stipules caducous or persistent, interpetiolar, triangular, entire or 1-3-setose or multifid. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, fasciculate or cymose and several flowered or reduced to 1 flower, pedunculate to sessile, bracteate with bracts usually fused in pairs. Flowers sessile or pedicellate, bisexual, apparently monomorphic. Calyx limb 4-6-lobed, sometimes funnelform, lobes sometimes unequal. Corolla white, campanulate, tubular, or funnelform, inside villous in throat; lobes 4(-6), valvate-induplicate in bud, with margins sometimes crisped. Stamens 4(-6), inserted in corolla throat, usually partially exserted; filaments short or reduced; anthers dorsifixed near base. Ovary 2-celled, ovules 1 in each cell, basal, erect; style 2-lobed, included or exserted. Fruit blue or purplish black, drupaceous, fleshy, ellipsoid, with calyx limb persistent; pyrenes 1 or 2, 1-celled, with 1 seed, crustaceous to papery; seeds medium-sized, plano-convex, subobovoid, or ellipsoid, abaxially (i.e., dorsally) smooth to verrucose, endosperm fleshy; cotyledon tiny, leaflike; radicle slender, close to hilum.

Saprosma is not well known. Analyses of relationships among Lasianthus and related genera support the transfer of S. crassipes into that genus, although the authors did not publish a formal nomenclatural transfer (Xiao & Zhu, Bot. Stud. (Taipei) 48: 227-232. 2007).

About 30 species: tropical Asia; five species (four endemic) in China.

(Authors: Chen Tao (陈涛); Charlotte M. Taylor)