Mussaenda

Shrubs, scandent shrubs or lianas. Leaves petiolate; blades usually elliptic with an acute or acuminate apex, pubescent or less often glabrous; stipules entire to completely bilobed, persistent or caducous. Flowers usually yellow to red or sometimes white, occasionally sweet-scented, isostylous or heterostylous, borne in terminal panicles. Calyx: tube oblong, turbinate or ovoid; lobes 5, usually subulate, linear, slightly spathulate or sometimes short and dentate or rounded, persistent or caducous; frequently several lobes on each inflorescence develop into a stalked white, creamy yellow or sometimes red dilated lamina; colleters usually present between calyx lobes. Corolla: tube cylindric, narrowly funnel-shaped or abruptly widened to accommodate the anthers, with flattened or fine hairs at throat and between anthers; limb 5-lobed, lobes reduplicate in bud, spreading at maturity, often with centre portion connate, with short hairs and often a star of longer, coloured hairs above. Stamens: anthers 5, with tips just level with the throat or inserted up to halfway down the tube, linear, connective very shortly acuminate at apex, attached by very short filaments near base. Ovary 2(3 or 4)-locular; ovules numerous, inserted on fleshy placentas; style slender, sometimes divided into 2 arms; stigma included or occasionally exserted, lobes 2, +/- oblong to fusiform. Fruit fleshy, indehiscent, globose, ellipsoid or oblong, sometimes crowned by persistent calyx lobes. Seeds many, pale brown to blackish, small, usually +/- flattened, reticulate.