General description:- Small shrubs, rarely herbs,
Leaves:- Simple, entire, usually alternate, exstipulate.
Flowers:- Hermaphrodite or unisexual, regular, 4-merous, usually in small heads or clusters, rarely in racemes or panicles. Sepals often petaloid, arising from the rim of a tubular, bell-shaped (campanulate) or urn-shaped (urceolate) hypanthium usually similar in colour and texture to the sepals. Petals absent in European genera. Stamens 8, inserted in 2 whorls on the wall of the hypanthium; filaments short. Ovary superior, at the base of the hypanthium but free from it, with a single pendent ovule; style terminal or somewhat lateral.
Fruit:- A nut or drupe.
DAPHNE
General description:- Dwarf to medium-sized shrubs, usually with tough, flexible branches;
Leaves:- Often clustered at the ends of the branches.
Flowers:- Hermaphrodite, usually fragrant, in terminal heads or axillary spikes or clusters, rarely in terminal panicles. Hypanthium tubular or narrowly campanulate; sepals and hypanthium petaloid; style terminal.
Fruit:- A drupe, exposed at maturity; exocarp succulent, rarely coriaceous.
Key features:-
1) Hypanthium not articulated, wholly persistent or wholly deciduous.
2) Exocarp succulent, rarely coriaceous.
3) Fruit exposed when mature.
4) Leaves rarely less than 12 mm.
5) Flower usually fragrant.
THYMELAEA
General description:- Evergreen dwarf shrubs, or rarely perennial or annual herbs. Usually with unisexual flowers, the male and female flowers on different plants (dioecious), but often with some hermaphrodite flowers on male and female plants.
Leaves:- Small, sessile.
Flowers:- Usually yellow, sometimes tinged with green or purple, solitary or in small clusters in the leaf-axils. Hypanthium urn-shaped (urceolate) or tubular, more or less petaloid, usually yellow or brown; sepals similar in colour and texture. Style short, lateral.
Fruit:- Dry, not splitting open to release their seeds (indehiscent), usually enclosed in the persistent hypanthium.
Key features:-
1) Exocarp thin and dry.
2) Mature fruit usually enclosed in the persistent hypanthium.
3) Leaves rarely more than 12 mm.
4) Flowers scarcely fragrant.
All European species grow in dry places.