| 1 | Anthers free from style head; corolla lobes most often sinistrorse, sometimes dextrorse; fruit dehiscent or indehiscent, syncarpous or apocarpous, a berry, drupe, follicle or capsule; seeds simple or with wings, a ciliate margin or with an aril, without a coma at one end |
| 1' | Anthers adnate to the style head, sometimes only weakly so; corolla lobes in bud most often dextrorse, sometimes sinistrorse or valvate; fruit dehiscent, a pair of follicles, mostly apocarpous or reduced to one or postgenitally fused; seeds mostly compressed, mostly with a coma at one end, occasionally at both ends, rarely absent |
| 2 | Disk, if present, in a ring around the base of the ovary; anthers 4-locular; pollen shed as monads (in Malesia); style head secretions for pollen transport normally a foamy adhesive or gummy, undifferentiated translators, pollinia absent; seeds without a thin margin |
| 2' | Disk located in alternistaminal troughs on staminal feet or staminal tube; anthers 2-4-locular; pollen shed as tetrads or in pollinia; style head secretions for pollen transport forming differentiated translators with sticky end or consisting of a rigid clip and two flexible arms; seeds often with a thin margin |
| 3 | Anthers 2-locular, pollen enclosed in pollinia covered by waxy outer wall |
| 3' | Anthers 4-locular, pollen shed as tetrads or, if in pollinia, then without waxy outer wall |
| 4 | Translators with sticky end which adheres to pollinator for removal; pollen usually shed in tetrads, or occasionally in pollinia, from anthers onto spoon- or cornet-shaped receptacle of translator |
| 4' | Translators with hardened, cliplike corpusculum in which some part of the pollinators body becomes caught for removal; pollen in 4 minute pollinia attached directly or indirectly to the corpusculum |
