Lianas or slender trees with scandent branches, glabrous throughout. Leaves opposite or subopposite, petiolate, the petioles shallowly canaliculate. Inflorescences axillary, pedunculate, much branched, paniculate-corymbose or pseudocymose, the branchlets slender or not. Flowers hermaphrodite, minute, pedicellate; sepals 5, usually longer than broad or as long as broad, acute or subacute, membranous; petals 5, imbricate, faintly erosulous at the margins, membranous; disc continuous, erect, short-cylindric, membranous to thin-carnose; stamens 3, suberect or reflexed, the filaments ligulate, gradually broadened toward the base, the anthers extrorsely nutant, subglobose or transversely oblong, dehiscing by apical, transversal, confluent clefts; ovary depressed-3-lobed, 3-celled, each cell 4-or 6-ovulate the ovules 2-seriate, ascending from the inner basal angle; style carnose, the stigmas obscure. Fruits of 3 capsular mericarps, these divergent, separately attached to a greatly swol-len receptacle, conspicuously convex on both surfaces, rounded and blunt at the margins, dehiscing along an obscure median suture, the pericarp woody; seeds 4-6 per mericarp, affixed by a comparatively small, basal wing.
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Lianas or small trees, glabrous throughout; branches opposite. Inflorescences axillary and/or terminal, often aggregated, paniculate-corymbose or pseudo-cymose, pedunculate, branchlets sometimes capillaceous; bracts and bracteoles imbricate, minute. Sepals 5; petals 5; disk thin-fleshy, erect, short-cylindric; stamens 3, erect or strongly reflexed, filaments ligulate, slightly broadened towards base, anthers very small, dehiscing by transverse, confluent clefts; ovary depressed globose-trigonous, locules 3, ovules 4-8 per locule, superposed, style fleshy, subulate, stigmas obscure. Fruits consisting of 3, free, divergent mericarps, attached to the swollen receptacle, convex, dehiscing along median suture, pericarp woody; seeds erect from the base, affixed by a basal wing of variable shape, embryoniferous part apical, thick, coriaceous.