Shrubs or trees; young stems and branchlets usually brown with tubercular dots and
scales. Leaves approximate at ends of branchlets, alternate, simple, mostly serrate with
prominent parallel veins diverging from midrib, often with hairs and scales, exstipulate.
Flowers axillary, solitary or in cymes or lateral panicles, bisexual, hypogynous, bracteate.
Sepals 5, free, imbricate, persistent. Petals 5, free or connate at base, imbricate.
Stamens many, adnate to the base of petals; anthers versatile dehiscing through apical
pores or short slits. Ovary superior, 3 -
5-locular, ovules numerous in axile placentation;
styles 3 -
5, free or variously united, sometimes completely so; stigmas simple. Fruit a
berry, globose, rarely dry and subdehiscent. Seeds small, numerous, albuminous.
Tropical and subtropical America, Asia and a few in Australi, ca 300 species; 8 in
India.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Flowers solitary or clustered, more or less sessile
