Glabrous, small to medium-sized trees. Flowers shortly-pedicellate, in axillary and/or (sub)terminal shortly-pedunculate corymb-like panicles, bracts small. Calyx cup-shaped, 5-dentate, small in anthesis, much enlarged towards fructification; petals 5, linear-elongate, cucullate-dilatate at apex, membranaceous, connate or coherent below, or free; stamens 5, filaments filiform, adnate to the petals at base, anthers subglobose; disc absent; ovary superior, oblongoid, 5-ribbed lengthwise, 2-locular at base, 1-locular at apex; style filiform, slightly shorter than the petals, stigma capitate, 5-lobed. Drupe globose or subovoid, usually with 5-10 longitudinal shallow ribs; fruit-calyx accrescent to a large circular papery wing in the centre enveloping the base of the drupe only (in the Guianas), embryo in the top of the copious endosperm, which contains exclusively fatty substances, no starch.
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