Trees or rarely shrubs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, usually coriaceous, glabrous to sericeous beneath, the margins usually serrulate, sometimes entire or nearly so. Flowers fasciculate in the leaf axils or on abbreviated branchlets, sometimes axillary and solitary, dioecious or polygamous, 2-bracteolate, the bracteoles opposite, in-serted immediately beneath the calyx; sepals 5, unequal, persistent; petals 5, alter-nisepalous, unequal, usually distinct; stamens 15-30 in staminate or 0 flowers, uniseriate, the filaments adnate to the base of the corolla, the anthers basifixed, shorter than the filaments, glabrous; staminodes many in pistillate flowers; ovary superior, 2-5-celled, the ovules co in each cell, the style entire, the stigma with the same number of lobes as cells in the ovary. Fruits indehiscent, dry; seeds cc, small, reniform; endosperm fleshy; embryo nearly straight or slightly curved.
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