Plants trees, shrubs or shrublets, shrubs from lignotubes; young branches. often angular and puberulent. Leaves usually opposite or in dense whorls of 3-7, occasionally alternate, sessileor petiolate; stipules absent ot reduced to a line; blades simple, often ericoid. Inflorescences usually terminal, rarely axillary, cymose, many-flowered; bracts various, often with 2 leafy prophylss,often also bibracteate at the inflorescence nodes. Flowers 4-5-merous, bisexual ; calyces usually united at the base, with 4-5 imbricate tp valvate lobes, shallowly lobed; corollas united, usually with a ring of hairs at the throat, lobes imbricate; stamens inserted at the throat, exserted; anthers with 2-thecae, confluent at the apices; ovaries 2-celled, each cell with many ovules; stigmas capitate or slightly bilobed.
The family Stibaceae includes 11 genera and 39 species. It is mostly South African, being particularly rich in the Cape Province, but it extends into tropical Africa, Madagascar, the Mascarenes, and Arabia.
Only one genus, Nuxia, grows in Somaliland and Somalia.