Shrubs or trees, unarmed or with straight axillary spines, without rust-colored villosulous indumentum on terminal and axillary buds or young inflorescences. Leaves alternate, 1-foliolate or simple; petiole 2-13 mm, usually not bent, twisted, or swollen. Inflorescences terminal and/or axillary, fasciculate, racemose, or paniculate. Flowers bisexual. Sepals 3-5, connate at base to nearly their full length, or calyx splitting irregularly into 2 or 4 segments. Petals 3-5, imbricate in bud. Stamens 6-10, equal or alternately unequal in length, distinct, monadelphous, filaments coherent in phalanges, or filaments irregularly coherent. Disk annular, cup-shaped, or columnar. Gynoecium 2-5-loculed, syncarpous; ovules 1 or 2 per locule; style to 1.5 × as long as ovary, deciduous in fruit. Fruit a berry, usually with pulp vesicles and with or without mucilaginous pulp; endocarp membranous. Seeds with membranous seed coat; endosperm lacking; embryo straight; cotyledons elliptic, plano-convex; hypocotyl partly included between cotyledons.
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