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Monoecious or dioecious glabrous shrubs. Leaves simple, opposite, fleshy, with a saccate colourless base. Stipules minute, caducous. Flowers axillary or terminal, in monoecious species (B. argillicola), solitary on short leafy shoots (brachyblasts) with male and female on same shoot, in dioecious species (B. maritima) congested in short dense axillary catkins or syncarps. Male flower subtended by bracts and surrounded by a pair of opposite fused bracteoles; stamens 4, alternating with 4 staminodes or appendages; anthers exserted, dorsifixed, introrse, dehiscing longitudinally; gynoecium rudimentary or absent. Female flower a naked ovary, free or several fused into a syncarp, 2-carpellate but 4-locular with one true and one false septum; each locule with an erect anatropous ovule; style short or absent; stigmas bicapitate, distinctly papillate, persistent. Fruit a drupe (B. argillicola) or syncarp (B. maritima); outer tissues fleshy or leathery, endocarp woody; seeds oblong, nearly straight; embryo nearly straight, endosperm wanting.
