Shrubs, rarely small scramblers, glabrous or with simple and/or stellate hairs. Leaves alternate (rarely reduced to scales), sessile to shortly petiolate, without stipules but often with axillary tufts of hairs, entire, rarely toothed or lobed, flat or ericoid withy the margins closely recurved to the midrib. Flowers sessile or pedicellate, terminal but sometimes appearing axillary through overgrowth from flower-subtending shoots, single or in bracteate pseudo-cincinnae, subtended by one or more herbaceous or scarious bracts. Sepals 5, imbricate, often slightly connate, often enlarging after flowering, the outer 3 often differing slightly in shape, size and vestiture from the inner 2. Petals 5, usually obovate, entire to distinctly emarginate, yellow, white or pink, deciduous. Stamens 3–many, in a complete ring or in 5 groups around the carpels or in one group dorsal to carpels; filaments free to almost completely connate; anthers dehiscing by lateral to introrse slits which may be short and terminal (the anthers then ±porate). Carpels 2–5(–10), free, erect to spreading with terminal to eccentric styles, 2–8-ovulate. Fruit a follicle; seeds arillate, the aril short and basal to completely enclosing the seed and translucent to brightly coloured.