Plants usually shrubs or lwoody climbers, rarelysmall trees or herbaceous. Leaves opposite or whorled, with or without interpetiolar stipules; blades simple or pinnatifie, often sessile or almost so. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, cymose, cymes 1-, 2-, 3-flowered, cymes subtended by a pair of bracts and 2 pairs of bracteoles, [in what used to be called the Dipsacaceae]cymes forming dense heads surrounded by an involucre. the subtending bracts fused into cup-shaped to tubular epicalyx (Dipsacaceae). Flowers radially to bilaterally symmetric, bisexual; calyces 4-5 lobed; corollas united, with 4-5 lobes, sometimes bilabiate, imbricate; stamens (2-)4-5, inserted on the corolla tubes, sometimes exserted; anthers with 2 thecae, opening by longitudinal slits, introrse; ovaries inferior, 1-8-celled, with 1-many ovules per cell, sometimes 1 or mor eovules aborted; styles simple; stigmas capitate or lobed. Fruits berries, drupes with 2-5 pyrenes, or achenes, achenes sometimes crowned by the peristent calyces; seeds 1-many; embryos small, straight, with copious endosperm.
The family Caprifoliaceae now includes a number of groups that used to be treated as families, such as the Dipsacaceae. The above description is for the expanded family, but may not encompass all its members.
Only one genus, Pterocephalus and one species, Pterocephalus frutescens, has been reported from Somaliland and Somalia. It is included in the family Dipsaceae in the Flora of Somalia.
