Description

Perennial herbs or subshrubs. Leaves subsessile; stipule a sheath bearing 3-15 fimbriae. Flowers often heterostylous, borne in cymes or corymbs or subspherical heads. Calyx with 4 ovate-triangular lobes. Corolla tubular, 4-lobed, often with additional filament-like lobes between. Ovary 2(-3)-locular; ovules numerous in each loculus. Fruit a subspherical capsule, with a conical beak which opens both loculicidally and septicidally.