Chassalia

Shrubs or less often small trees or subshrubby herbs, with mostly glabrous or only finely pubescent stems. Leaves opposite or rarely ternate, mostly acuminate, usually quite thin, shortly to distinctly petiolate, usually glabrous; stipules interpetiolar, ovate to triangular or quite short and broad, sometimes united into a small sheath, entire or with 2 short fimbriae, often with colleters and hairs within the base, mostly persistent. Flowers bisexual, 4-5-merous, heterostylous, mostly small, in branched panicles, the ultimate elements usually being small heads but in a few species flowers pedicellate; bracts small. Calyx: tube mostly ovoid or oblong, ribbed, free limb mostly very short; lobes triangular or linear but mostly very short. Buds often winged. Corolla white, pink or purple, sometimes yellow inside; tube cylindric, hairy or glabrous inside; lobes often winged; venation of corolla often curiously prominent in dry material. Stamens included or exserted. Disc cylindric, distinct. Ovary 2-locular; ovules solitary in each locule, erect from base; style included or exserted; stigma lobes linear. Fruits succulent, with 2 pyrenes; pyrenes pale, semiglobose or semi-ellipsoid, ventral surface often grooved, often with a median dorsal keel along which dehiscence takes place. Seeds concavo-convex, with a pale testa; endosperm not ruminate.