Trees, dioecious (or ?monoecious), evergreen. Leaves usually alternate, sometimes subopposite; stipules early caducous; petiole long, without glands at apex nor along length; leaf blade pinnate-veined, lateral veins closely set, mostly 1(-2) cm apart, margin glandular-serrate or glandular-crenate, sometimes minutely so. Flowers unisexual, hypogynous; staminate flowers in erect, terminal panicles; pistillate flowers 1 to few in short terminal or axillary racemes; bracts present; bracteoles 1 pair per pedicel, usually caducous. Pedicels not obviously articulate in dried material. Sepals appearing 3-or 4-merous in bud, in fact to 5-merous at anthesis, nearly free, valvate, ovate, with base appearing ± cordate when sepal erect, texture rather thick, margins slightly conduplicate. Petals absent. Disk glands absent. Staminate flowers: stamens many; filaments free, filiform; anthers ellipsoid to oblong, basifixed, connective usually curved, bringing both locules to face in same direction (toward periphery of flower); abortive ovary present. Pistillate flowers: ovary superior, 1-loculed; placentas 6-8, rarely 5, filiform, finally woody, persistent; ovules numerous; styles 6-8, very short, connate, forming a short longitudinally ribbed column; stigmatic branches (4-)6-8, spreading or strongly reflexed against ovary, irregularly palmately lobed; staminodes many, extragynoecial, like stamens but very much reduced. Capsule ovoid or ellipsoid, large, woody, tomentose, outer layer probably finally dehiscent; valves (5 or)6-8, fusiform, splitting from apex and base and remaining attached by woody persistent placental strips; styles caducous. Seeds many, arranged vertically in capsule, winged; wing broad, flat, thin, triangular, squarish or rectangular, completely surrounding seed; seed proper small.
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Dioecious trees. Leaves spirally arranged, large, long-petioled, crenate, pinnati-nerved. Stipules 0, but intra-axillary buds attached to nearly all leaves. Panicles of male flowers erect, ample, terminal, shortly peduncled. ♀ Flowers solitary, axillary (or terminal ?); peduncle in fruit elongate, distinctly articulate above the middle. Calyx in both sexes coriaceous, lobes 3(-4), valvate, nearly free, ovate-deltoid. Petals 0. Male flowers: stamens numerous, up to half the length of the calyx-lobes; filaments filiform; anthers minute, basifixed. Ovary rudimentary. ♀ Flowers: unknown, probably with numerous staminodes. Fruit capsular, large, ± attenuate-ovoid or-oblong, with short, broad style and sessile, shortly 6-S-lobed stigma, many-seeded, tardily dehiscent from the apex in (5-)6-8 valves, these coherent at the base, but the coriaceous exocarp separating both at base and apex from the hard, woody endocarp; placentas (5-)6-8, woody, filiform, persistent in the centre of the valves, but detaching at base and apex. Seeds very compressed, winged, vertical, the inner ones in radial groups, the outer ones arranged in tangential groups, the proper seed lenticular and small, the wing ample, membranous, very variable in size (± triangular to quadrate), with funicle running transversely through the wing.
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