Dipsacaceae

Erect, perennial herbs; rootstock horizontal; stem-base (?always) provided with 2 elongated, spindle-shaped, subterranean tubers. Leaves decussate, dentate to pinnatifid, exstipulate, mostly crowded into a basal pseudo-rosette, cauline ones distant, gradually reduced; base decurrent into the petiole; petioles clasping the stem. Panicle terminal, bracteate, branches decussate, forked, cymose, outermost in triads; rachis and branches distinct from the stem by the presence of capitate-glandular hairs. Flowers ♀, articulated on a short pedicel, 5-merous, subactinomorphic. Base of the pedicel sustained by 2 narrow, ciliate, 1-nerved bracts ending in a thickened (?glandular), blunt nerve-tip. Ovary surrounded by 4 conspicuously capitate-glandular, persistent bracts connate at their extreme base and cuspidulate (in fruit hooked) at their apex ( outer epicalyx) and a tubular, 8-ribbed, utricle-shaped, persistent inner epicalyx with a slight constriction at its apex below a minute, crenulate or toothed limb. Calyx minute, epigynous, 5-lobed. Corolla epigynous, gamophyllous, white, pink or red, caducous; tube funnel-shaped; lobes 5, equal, rounded, erect, imbricate in bud. Stamens 4, equal, alternating with the lobes; filaments free towards the apex of the tube; anthers intrors, dorsifixed. Style 1, terete, stigma capitate. Ovary 1-celled, narrow. Ovule 1, pendulous from the apex of the cell to halfway the ovary. Fruit 1-seeded, thin-walled, surrounded by the inner epicalyx, and this in turn by the hardened, 4-lobed, capitate-glandular outer epicalyx, the tips of which are hooked; fruit with epicalyces breaking off from the top of the pedicel as a diaspore. Seed oblong, subterete, acutish towards both ends, smooth but for two faint, longitudinal ridges; albumen plentiful; embryo scarcely shorter than the seed. Distr. Two spp., from the Sikkim-Himalaya, S. China and Formosa, to E. Malaysia.