Herbs or shrubs. Leaves spirally arranged—often radical or in tufts at the end of the twigs—very rarely opposite, simple, penninerved, exstipulate. Indument, if present, either consisting of simple, or fasciculate, or stellate hairs; leaf-axils often with hair tufts. Inflorescences cymose, bracteate, or flowers solitary, in the latter case sometimes together resembling racemes. Flowers 5-merous, epi- (or peri-) gynous, bisexual, protandrous. Calyx gamosepalous, tube nearly always adnate to the ovary, lobes usually well-developed. Corolla gamopetalous, nearly always zygomorphous by a dorsal slit; the free segments with very thin, sharply induplicative, membranous margins. Stamens 5, episepalous, free (rarely the anthers cohering in a tube), usually fully glabrous; filaments slender, linear, usually slightly narrowed from base to apex; anthers basifixed, introrse, rather long and narrow, 2-celled, cells opening lengthwise by a slit. Disk absent. Ovary 2- or (often imperfectly) 1-celled; style cylindrical, simple (in Calogyne bi- or trifid at the apex); stigma surrounded by a cup-shaped (in Lechenaultia distinctly 2-lobed) indusium, the margin of which is often ciliate. Ovules ~-1, either axillary or ± basally attached, anatropous, rarely campylotropous. Fruits usually capsular, sometimes drupaceous; calyx persistent. Seeds ~-1, provided with endosperm. Distribution. Fourteen genera comprising c. 300 spp., almost exclusively Australian, in (mostly East-)Malaysia 5 genera with 7 spp. conspecific with or allied to Queensland species.