Plants herbs, subshrubs, ahrubs or trees, with milky latex. Leaves usually alternate, rarely opposite or verticillate, without stipules. Inflorescences varied, cymose, paniculate, racemose, spikelike, or headlike or of solitary flowers. Flowers bisexual. usually protandrous; calyx lobes, valvate; corollas united, sometimes only basally, varying from radially to bilaterally symmetric, (3-)5(-10)-merous, bilaterally symmetric flowers usually 2- or 1-lipped, with a distinct tube, this sometimes split on one side, sometimes resupinate, lobes of all flowers valvate in bud; stamens free or adnate to the corollas, alternating with the corolla lobes in radially symmetric flowers; anthers introrse, usually free in radially cymmetric flowers, usually united into a tube in bilaterally symmetric flowers; ovaries usually more or less inferior, rarely superior, 2-10-celled; ovules few to many, axile; styles 1, with pollen collecting hairs on the upper portion. Fruits capsules, dehiscing by apical or lateral valves or pores, rarely by a lid, or berries; seeds 1-many, embryos straight.
The family Campanulaceae as described above includes the Lobeliaceae, a treatment that was often suggested on morphological and anatomical grounds. Molecular approaches support the combination of the two. The enlarged family includes about 65 genera and 1700 species. It is mostly tropical and subtropical in its distribution.