Subshrubs or rarely shrubs, erect. Leaves alternate, pinnately veined or palmately 3-5-veined, margin entire. Flowers axillary, arranged in racemes, cymes, corymbs, or scorpioid cymes; bracts opposite to flowers. Perianth uniseriate, actinomorphic. Calyx lobes fused; tube campanulate, cupular, or urceolate, throat usually with thickened ring; lobes 3 or 4, valvate. Stamens 8 or 9 in 1 series [or 6-36(-46) in 1 or 2 series]; filaments short or absent, free or partly connate, adnate to style with anthers remaining free; anthers extrorse. Ovary inferior, 4-loculed; carpels fully connate. Style short, 5-20-lobed; stigma terminal or lateral. Fruit siliquiform. Seed: testa transversely rugose or glandular punctate.

About 25 species: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam; one species (endemic) in China.