Fruit forming a drupaceous whole with an enlarged, fleshy, orange to yellow-coloured receptacle, crowned with the remnants of staminate flowers and bracts; seed large, without endosperm; cotyledons thick, unequal.
Inflorescences in the leaf axils or just below the leaves, bisexual or staminate, discoid or subglobose to turbinate-capitate; bracts interfloral, peltate, marginal bracts often basally attached.
Pistillate flower 1, central, partly adnate to the receptacle; perianth 4-lobed; ovary adnate to the perianth; stigmas 2, band-shaped, equal.
Staminate flowers several to many; tepals 3–4, connate; stamens (1)2, inflexed in bud; pistillode present.
Leaves distichous, pinnately veined to subtriplinerved; stipules fully amplexicaul, free.
Trees or shrubs, monoecious (?) sometimes androdioecious.