Trees or shrubs. Leaves often coriaceous; stipules usually entire and connate, short, obtuse, often semiorbicular. Inflorescences terminal or rarely axillary, pa-niculate or umbellate, many flowered, the peduncle usually present, the branch-lets ultimately cymose; bracts slender or much reduced. Flowers usually 4-mer-ous, rarely sessile, the bud rounded or truncate; hypanthium occasionally with 4 lobes or teeth; corolla funnelform or salverform, the throat naked, the lobes 4, valvate; anthers subsessile; stigmas 2, the lobes filamentous, the ovary 2-celled, the ovules 2, longer than broad, erect, connate by means of a thin, evanescent septum. Fruits drupaceous, oval, 1-seeded by abortion of the second seed, the seed vertical, ellipsoid, usually smooth, often one side convex.
Home