Large trees, the leafy twigs stout and fistulose. Leaves usually crowded toward the end of the twigs, ordinarily sessile or subsessile. Flowers few to several in dense umbelliform cauliflorous clusters. Hypanthium urceolate. Calyx nearly entire to broadly and irregularly 4-lobed, not prominent in fruit. Petals 4, rarely 5, sub-equal, rather small for the family. Androphore radially symmetrical, wholly fertile, the elongate inflexed fleshy filaments of the innumerable stamens coherent at the base into a shallow perigynous ring; anthers small and ovoid, dehiscing longitudi-nally. Ovary 4-celled at anthesis, each cell containing 2-4 pendulous ovules, but usually only I cell and I ovule developing in fruit; stigma sessile, 4-radiate, inserted on a prominent square disc. Fruit a rather mediocre coriaceous or fleshy pyriform indehiscent berry usually containing a single seed, the opercular region and calyx obscure.
Home