Plants perennial shrubs or suffrutescent herbs; roots not known. Stems erect, prostrate, or climbing, ribbed. Leaves cauline, sessile or short-petiolate (petiole usually less than 1.5 cm); blade elliptic to oblanceolate or spatulate, base narrowed, margins entire, apex acute, acuminate, or obtuse, membranaceous. Inflorescences terminal or axillary spikelike racemes or panicles. Pedicels 2-bracteolate, short. Flowers sometimes heterostylous, short-pedicellate; bracts absent; calyx persistent, 5-ribbed, tubular, with stalked, capitate-glandular protuberances along ribs; lobes triangular, 1-2 mm; corolla salverform, evenly to somewhat unevenly 5-lobed, lobes spreading, obovate, round, or truncate, mucronate; stamens included or exserted, free from corolla; style 1 included or exserted; stigmas 5, linear. Fruits capsules, included, brownish, long-beaked; valves coherent at apex. x = 7.
