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Shrubs or small trees, sometimes dioecious, sometimes with short shoots, unarmed or sometimes with paired straight supra-axillary thorns. Raphides absent. Leaves opposite, with or without domatia; stipules persistent or caducous, interpetiolar, shortly united around stem, or fused to petiole bases, triangular, internally (i.e., adaxially) sometimes sericeous to pilose. Inflorescences axillary, cymose to fasciculate, few to several flowered, sessile to pedunculate, bracteate with bracts sometimes fused in calyculate pairs. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate, bisexual and monomorphic (Canthium s.s.) or sometimes unisexual. Calyx with ovary portion often subglobose to hemispherical; limb very short, truncate or 4-or 5-lobed. Corolla green to white or pale yellow, tubular, urceolate, or funnelform, with tube often constricted at top, inside variously pubescent but usually with ring of introrse hairs in tube; lobes 4 or 5, often long acuminate or aristate at apex, in bud valvate and often with apices held erect and pressed together forming apiculate projection, at anthesis notably reflexed. Stamens 4 or 5, inserted at corolla throat, partially to fully exserted; filaments short or reduced; anthers dorsifixed near base, elliptic to ovate, at anthesis reflexed. Ovary 2-5-celled, ovules 1 in each cell, pendulous from apical placenta; stigma included or exserted, capitate to cupular, entire to variously lobed, usually with style attachment recessed. Fruit brown, yellow, orange, or red, drupaceous, subglobose, ellipsoid, or often dicoccous when fully developed or reniform with only 1 seed, fleshy, with calyx limb caducous or infrequently persistent; pyrenes 2-5, 1-celled with 1 seed in each cell, ellipsoid to reniform, bony or crustaceous; seeds medium-sized to large, ellipsoid, cylindrical, or plano-convex; testa membranous; endosperm fleshy; radicle ascending.
Fruit a 2(3)-seeded drupe or often 1-seeded by abortion, small to moderately large, strongly dorsiventrally flattened or not, strongly or scarcely indented at apex; pyrenes ellipsoid to ovoid or obovoid, often flattened on ventral face, thinly woody, slightly to distinctly triangular or truncate at point of attachment, with a shallow crest extending to apex, usually rugulose.
Heterophylly sometimes apparent; leaves either deciduous and restricted to brachyblasts (contracted lateral spurs) or apex of stem, or evergreen and spaced along the branches, opposite, paired, petiolate; domatia absent, pit-like or present as tufts of hair; stipules shortly sheathing, apiculate or aristate, glabrous or pubescent within.
Corolla white or yellowish, glabrous or rarely pubescent outside; tube broadly cylindrical, ± equal to lobes or sometimes longer or shorter, with or without a ring of deflexed hairs inside, often pubescent at throat; lobes reflexed or less often erect, obtuse, acute or shortly apiculate.
Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual, 4–5 merous, pedicellate or not, borne in pedunculate to subsessile few–many-flowered cymes; inflorescence branches present, sometimes reduced; bracteoles inconspicuous.
Style slender, shortly exceeding the corolla tube, glabrous; pollen presenter ± spherical, point of attachment within a distinct basal recess, 2(3)-lobed; ovary 2(3)-locular.
Seeds with endosperm entire; testa finely reticulate; embryo ± straight to curved with radicle erect; cotyledons small, perpendicular to ventral face of seed.
Calyx tube broadly ellipsoid to ovoid, ± obsolete or somewhat reduced, scarcely equalling the disk, bearing triangular or linear lobes.
Stamens set at throat; anthers subsessile or borne on short filaments, with or without darkened connective tissue on dorsal face.
Shrubs or small trees, sometimes scandent; spines absent or present.
Disk glabrous (pubescent in some South African species).
