Dilleniaceae

Shrubs, rarely scramblers or climbers, but also trees. Leaves alternate or opposite, stipules absent, rarely minute. Flowers single, rarely in cymes or racemes, bisexual, actinomorphic to zygomorphic; sepals 5, imbricate, persistent; petals 5, rarely 3–many, imbricate, deciduous to caducous; stamens 3–many in a ring or groups around the ovary, or in one group to one side of it, hypogynous, usually free, rarely with some staminodes; anther locules 2, dehiscing by pores and/or longitudinal slits; carpels 1(–many), usually free; ovary with 1–many anatropous ovules; style free with simple terminal stigma. Fruit a follicle (rarely indehiscent); seeds often with funicular aril of different shapes, embryo small, straight, endosperm copious.