Deciduous shrubs or trees. Branchlets without vascular strands in the pith. Leaves mostly stipulate and often with transitions from stipules to normal leaflets; margin of the leaflets crenate-serrate; stipellae often present. Inflorescences axillary, crowded at the ends of the branchlets, appearing before the leaves. Flowers bisexual, 5-merous, with a concave, globose or cupular receptacle. Sepals free. Stamens 10, free, inserted at the margin of the receptacle. Disk adnate to the receptacle, glabrous, with 10 lobes between the stamens. Ovary shortly stalked, 5-celled. Fruits drupaceous, pericarp fleshy. Pyrenes 1-5, small, furrowed, bony. Cotyledons contortuplicate, compound.
Trees or shrubs, deciduous. Leaves compound, stipulate; leaflets often with stipellae. Panicles axillary near ends of branchlets, appearing before the leaves. Flowers bisexual, 5-partite, perigynous, with hypanthium. Sepals free. Stamens 10, free, with a disc lobe between each filament. Ovary on short gynophore; carpels 5, fused. Drupe of 1–5 pyrenes.