Dioecious or monoecious trees or shrubs. Indumentum simple. Leaves alternate, usually crowded at the apex of the shoots, uni-, bi-or trifoliolate, entire, long-petiolate, stipulate, the stipules arising from the petiole. Flowers fasciculate in the axils of fallen leaves on wood of the second season’s growth or older; bracts minute. Male flowers: tepals 6, imbricate, biseriate; disc 0; stamens 11–15, filaments free, anthers ovoid, dorsifixed, extrorse; pistillode 3–6-lobed. Pseudohermaphrodite flowers sometimes present, with sterile anthers and an intrastaminal disc. Female flowers: tepals ± as in ♂ flowers, but quickly caducous; disc annular, sinuate-lobulate; ovary 3-locular, with 2 ovules per locule; styles 3, short or obsolete, stigmas capitate, reniform. Fruits borne on robust pedicels, trilobed, dehiscing septicidally into 3 bivalved cocci; endocarp crustaceous. Seeds triquetrous, or ovoid if only one develops per loculus, testa shiny.
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