Trees or tall shrubs, the pubescence of stellate hairs or fimbrillate lepidotes. Leaves alternate, petiolate, the stipules rapidly or tardily deciduous, the blade with entire or serrulate margins, 3-to 5(-7)-palminerved. Inflorescences oppositifolious or terminal, paniculate. Flowers hermaphrodite, actinornorphous, pedicellate, brac-teolate; calyx valvate, the sepals 4-5, free or sometimes very slightly connate at the base, deciduous; petals 4-5, free, imbricate, glandless; stamens numerous, free or usually connate into a short staminal tube, the filaments short; anthers 2-thecate, introrse, basifixus, erect, longitudinally dehiscent, with a sterile membranous appendage of the connective at the top; ovary superior, sessile, (8-)1.0-to many-celled, the cells many-ovulate; style simple; stigma minutely denticulate. Capsules ligneous, transversely elliptic, densely to coarsely bristly or spinose, opening at the top by woody teeth or by a nearly circular hole; seeds numerous, small, embedded in a lustrous pulp, the testa thin-coriaceous; albumen carnose; embryo straight; cotyledons orbicular-cordate.
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