Shrubs (some climbers) or herbs (sometimes stellate-pubescent), with leaves mostly alternate simple and entire or dentate or pinnatifid; stipules none; flowers perfect, regular; calyx usually 5-lobed, (or 4 or 6) sometimes enlarging in fruit; corolla tubular rotate to campanulate, the lobes usually 5, usually plicate in bud; stamens 5, inserted on the tube, alternate with the lobes of the corolla; anthers 2-celled, either opening by longitudinal slits or by terminal pores; ovary superior, 2-celled (cells sometimes divided by false partitions); ovules many on axile placentae; style terminal; stigma globular or briefly lobed; fruit a berry or capsule, many- seeded; seeds endospermous. About 75 genera and 2000 species, mostly Tropical, around the world. Eight genera reported from Guam, only one (one species) indigenous.