Dioecious glabrous shrubs or trees, the sap often reddish. Leaves alternate, glabrous, char-taceous to coriaceous, petiolate, exstipulate, the tertiary veins parallel, conspicuously perpendicu-lar to the midrib. Flower fascicles in spikes, racemes or panicles, the axes glabrous, the bracts absent or inconspicuous. S t a m i n a t e flowers 3-25 per fascicle, the 3 (-5) tepals partially united; anthers 4-10, as long as or longer than the column. Pistillate flowers 1-8 per fascicle, the tepals partly connate, the 1-carpellate ovary with a subsessile 2-lobed stigma. Fruits fleshy, the thin pericarp dehiscing longitudinally into 2 valves; aril usually brightly colored and subentire; seed ellip-soid.
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