Habit

Perennial herbs, shrubs, or small trees.

Leaves

Leaves simple, alternate, margins entire or toothed.

Flowers

Flowers perfect, strongly irregular, axillary, solitary or in cymes, bracteolate; calyx 5 parted; corolla funnelform unilabiate, 5 parted, the tube split adaxially, the lobes spreading, often winged; stamens 5, distinct; ovary inferior, ovoid, 2 celled, placentation axile; style exserted and protruding through the adaxially split tube, curved abruptly downward near stigma.

Fruit

Fruit a blue-black or white 1- or 2-seeded drupe, the exocarp often succulent, the endocarp woody or bony, sometimes surrounded by softer, corky tissue. 

Seeds

Seeds obovate, plano-convex.