Annual or biannual herb, 20-80 cm high.  Stems with hirsute-glandulose.  Leaves, linear-lanceolate, apex acute or acuminate, margin usually revolute, veinsgreen, densely or scarcely hirsute-glandulose, underside with wooly surface.  Inflorescence head, simple or corymbose; corolla yellow, sometimes with coffee-colored apex.  Achenes oblong or tightly obovate, coffee-colored.

Shrub or tree up to 10 m high, bark peeling in large, smooth, thin, flakes. Leaves, opposite in pairs, elliptic or oblong, obtuse at tip, cuneate at base, blades 7-14 x 2.5-5 cm hairy beneath and transparent dots; flower usually solitary, petals white, stamens numerous; fruit highly aromatic and edible, a globose or pear-shaped berry, 2-6 cm in diameter, ripening yellow with yellow or pinkish flesh surrounding numerous hard seeds.

Monecious, short-lived shrub or small tree, more than 5 m high with copious clear sap.  Leaves spiral, long-stalked, blades 60 cm. broad, peltate, palmately divided into 7 or more lobes; inflorescence terminal panicle to 20 cm long or more; male flowers clustered at the base of pedicels with white calyx ca, 9 mm long, female flowers at the top of pedicels with calyx deciduous; fruit a capsule oblong about 2.5 cm long, spiny prickles; seeds elliptic,10-17 mm long, mottled grey or brown.  

Perennial shrub 2-3 m high. Stems glabrous but pubescent on younger branches.  Leaves broadly elliptical, acuminate at both ends 6-12 cm x 3-6 cm; inflorescence a lax racemes 10-15 cm long, corolla tubular 2.5 mm long, white and purple; fruit 4 spherical nutlets with verrucose pericarp, 1.2 mm in diameter.

Annual or perennial of 50 cm in height, occasionally with leaning branches. Elongated, ovate or punctate leaves from 3 to 7 cm long. Flowers in spikes of 1.5 to 3 cm in length emerging from the axils of the leaves. Pilose 2 mm capsules.