A genus of three or four evergreen shrubs or trees in the Himalaya, the Khasi Hills, Burma, China, and parts of Malaysia. Leaves alternate, entire. Flowers white in terminal corymbose panicles. Calyx funnel-shaped or campanulate, unequally toothed. Petals five, clawed. Ovary borne on a long-exserted gynophore. Staminal column adnate to the gynophore, terminated by a globose cluster of sessile anthers, which enclose the ovary. Fruit a woody, five-valved capsule.
The genus is revised by J. Anthony in Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edin., Vol. 15 (1926), pp. 121-9. It is named after John Reeves senior (1774-1856), who introduced many Chinese plants to Britain during his service with the East India Company at Macao and Canton.