Flowers: Perfect, actinomorphic; filaments, anthers, and stigma fused into a gynostegium; petals often with horn & hood that make up the corona; pollen in pollinia, pollinia of adjacent anther sacs connected by translator arms with gland or corpusculum; carpels 2, superior, free below; many marginal ovules

Inflorescences: Umbels or cymes, flowers solitary in succulent species

Fruits: Follicles, seeds with COMA of hairs

Habit: Perennial herbs, vines, often trees and shrubs in the tropics, succulents in South Africa; sap milky

Leaves: Opposite or whorled, simple, entire, no stipules

Examples:
Asclepias (milkweeds): A. curassavica, A. syriaca, A. tuberosa, A. verticillata
Ceropegia sandersonii (parachute plant)
Cynanchum (shallow-wort/bluevine)
Hoya carnosa (wax plant)
Stapelia (carrion flower)
Stephanotis floribunda