Home
Shrubs or trees [lianas], sometimes epiphytic or epilithic with adventitious roots, sometimes polygamodioecious, sap yellowish [white]. Stems terete [4-lined]. Leaves petiolate [sessile]; petiole planoconvex to terete; blade leathery or fleshy, margins sometimes revolute, venation pinnate, glandular canals crossing veins. Inflorescences 1–3-flowered; bracts 2–6. Flowers stellate or cupuliform; sepals 4[–6], margins entire, glands linear, often obscure; petals [4–]6(–8)[–10], imbricate or decussate, white, turning pink to brown [red, yellow], margins entire, glands linear, laminar; [staminate flowers: stamens distinct or connate, pistillodes present or absent]; bisexual or pistillate flowers sometimes with ring of ± connate stamens or staminodes or sterile annulus; stigmas radiating. Capsules [4–]6–9(–12)-valved, leathery or fleshy. Seeds: aril red, basal or ± enveloping seed.
flowers the gynoecium consisting of 4-10 basally or entirely connate carpels, the ovules mostly numerous, anatropous, subhorizontal, ascending or pendulous, the styles connate or not, sometimes obsolete, often spreading, the stigmas sessile, usually black, linear, circular or triangular. Fruit a fleshy or leathery tardily dehiscent capsule, the seeds large or small, enveloped in an often colored aril, the arils sometimes enveloping more than 1 seed.
