Trees or tall shrubs, the trunk sometimes buttressed, the pubescence of stellate hairs. Leaves alternate, shortly petiolate, the stipules paired and mostly deciduous, the blade usually serrate, 3-to 5-palminerved. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, cymose or thyrsiform, sometimes flowers solitary. Flowters hermaphrodite, actino-morphous, pedicellate, bracteolate, calyculate, the bractlets 9-17, sometimes more or less long-connate at the base, mostly deciduous or rarely persistent; calyx valvate, the sepals 5, free or rarely shortly connate at the base, deciduous; petals 5, free, imbricate, longer than the sepals, glandular-thickened within at the base; stamens numerous, shortly 5-to 10-adelphous, the phalanges seldom united into a very short staminal tube, the outer stamens staminodial; anthers 2-thecate, extrorse, more or less medifixus, versatile or seldom erect, longitudinally dehiscent; ovary superior, usually sessile, infrequently very short-stipitate, 5-celled, the cells many-ovulate; style simple, thick, somewhat enlarged near the apex; stigma capitate. Capsules ligneous, imperfectly loculicidally 5-valvate; seeds numerous, small, the testa crustaceous, expanded above into a large membranous wing; albumen carnose; embryo straight; cotyledons plane, foliaceous.
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