Description from Flora of China Herbs, clambering subshrubs,
shrubs, or lianas. Leaves alternate or opposite, entire,
exstipulate. Flowers small, bisexual or unisexual, or sterile
and reduced, subtended by 1 membranous bract and 2 bracteoles,
solitary or aggregated in cymes. Inflorescences elongated or
condensed spikes (heads), racemes, or thyrsoid structures of
varying complexity. Bracteoles membranous or scarious. Tepals
3-5, membranous, scarious or subleathery, 1-, 3-, 5-, or
7(-23)-veined. Stamens as many as tepals and opposite these,
rarely fewer than tepals; filaments free, united into a cup at
base or ± entirely into a tube, filament lobes present or
absent, pseudostaminodes present or absent; anthers (1-
or)2-loculed, dorsifixed, introrsely dehiscent. Ovary superior,
1-loculed; ovules 1 to many; style persistent, short and
indistinct or long and slender; stigma capitate, penicillate,
2-lobed or forming 2 filiform branches. Fruit a dry utricle or a
fleshy capsule, indehiscent, irregularly bursting, or