Small trees or shrubs, without stinging hairs. Leaves alternate (or opposite outside Flora area), often distichous, petiolate; stipules caducous, intrapetiolar, connate, membranous, 2-lobed or entire; leaf blade papery, 3(-5)-veined, often tomentose abaxially, base asymmetric, margin crenate-serrate or entire; cystoliths punctiform. Inflorescences axillary, pedunculate, densely globose clusters of unisexual flowers (plants often dioecious); glomerules solitary or in dichotomous cymes. Male flowers: perianth lobes 4 or 5, valvate; stamens 4 or 5; rudimentary ovary ovoid, glabrous or woolly. Female flowers: perianth small, cupular, 4 or 5-lobed or-toothed, adnate to base of ovary. staminodes absent. Ovary obliquely ovoid, stigma sessile, penicillate, with tuft of long hairs; ovule orthotropous; Achene somewhat drupaceous, slightly compressed, with ± fleshy pericarp. Seeds with thin endosperm; cotyledons elliptic.
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