Shrubs or medium sized trees, usually up to 20 m high. Leaves alternate, simple, often 10-24 cm long, oblanceolate to obovate, entire; veins often prominent on the lower surface, coriaceous to rigid, glabrous to pilose. Inflorescences terminal, broadly paniculate to corymbose, drying reddish brown and with a conspicuous reticulate epidermis, generally many flowered. Flowers small, red, rose, or violet, bisexual, 5-merous, regular, pedicellate; calyx cupular, shortly 5-lobed, coriaceous; corolla lobes free, oblong, coriaceous, the apices inflexed, valvate in bud; stamens 5, free, all fertile, inserted at the base of the 5-lobed nectary, the filaments free, filiform, the anthers oblong, dorsifixed; ovary often ellipsoid, 5-locular, each locule with 2 superposed ovules. Fruits drupaceous, usually oval, 5-locular; seeds generally 2 per locule, oblong, black.
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