Trees, small, or shrubs. Leaves alternate, coriaceous, scabrous, pubescent with stellate hairs, rarely stellate and simple hairs mixed, incrusted with silica, the petioles canaliculate, alate. Inflorescences arising in the axils of fallen leaves on old wood, rarely terminal on the young branches, paniculiform, many-flowered. Flowers perfect, actinomorphic; sepals 4-5, persistent, more or less equal; petals 4-5, free, caducous; stamens indefinite, persistent, the filaments free, filiform, the anthers longitudinally dehiscent, 2-thecate, the thecae nearly parallel, about half sunken into the dilated connective; carpels 2, rarely 1 or 5, globose, pilose, fused basally, 1-thecate, the ovules 2, erect, basal, the styles filiform, the stigmas pelate. Fruit usually bilobed, globose, pilose, fused basally, dehiscent along the ventral and lateral sutures into 4 valves, the carpels each with 2, rarely 1 seeds, the seeds smooth, arillate, the aril more or less entire, nearly enveloping the seed at maturity, the embryo small.
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