Glabrous, erect, shrub or small tree, with thin greenish-brown bark, smaller branchlets spiny at tip; leaves opposite, lanceolate or oblanceolate, entire, acute, subsessile or shortly petiolate; flowers creamy white turning yellow afterwards, sweet scented, in large, terminal, panicled cymes; calyx tube very straight, short, sepals-4, free, ovate, persistent; petals-4, obovate, crimpled, inserted on the top of calyx tube; stamens 8 sometimes 4, inserted in pairs between the petals, on the rim of calyx tube, anthers oblong, filaments short; ovary 4-celled, free, ovules many, placenta axile; style long; stigma capitate; capsule globose, coriaceous, irregularly splitting up, ultimately 1-celled; seeds many, small, angular, smooth, brown.