Trees or shrubs; bark smooth or rough, the older bark peeling off in thin pa-pery sheets or thick plate-like scales. Leaves odd-pinnate, bipinnate, or 1-to many-foliolate, usually crowded at the ends of the branches, completely deciduous during the dry season; leaflets opposite, membranaceous to coriaceous, petiolulate to ses-sile, the margins entire to toothed. Inflorescences axillary raceme-like panicles, appearing just before or simultaneously with to rarely after the new leaves; plants dioecious or polygamodioecious. Flowers small, 3-5-merous, usually func-tionally unisexual; sepals 3-5, connate at least basally, imbricate; petals 3-5, whitish to yellow, longer than the sepals, spreading and recurved, induplicate-v7dlvate; stamens 6-10, the filaments subulate, free, inserted at the base of the disc, the anthers oblong, dorsifixed, smaller and abortive in carpellate flowers; disc annular, 6-10-lobed; gynoecium 2-3-carpelled, the ovary 2-3-lobed and-loculed, ovoid, sessile, small and abortive in staminate flowers, the ovules col-lateral, pendulous, 2 per locule, the style short, the stigma capitate, 2-3-lobed. Fruits drupaceous, subglobular to ellipsoid or obovoid, 2-3-angled, resinous, the exocarp and mesocarp coriaceous, dehiscing at maturity by 2-3 valves; pyrenes usually 1, usually 1-seeded; endosperm absent, the embryo straight or curved, the cotyledons foliaceous, contortuplicate, phanerocotyler.
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