Shrubs or small to medium-sized trees. Leaves alternate, petiolate, the petiole pulvinate at the apex, the stipules early caducous, the blade entire-margined or the margins dentate. Flowers dioecious; staminate flowers axillary, in small fascicles or sometimes solitary; pistillate flowers axillary and usually solitary; sepals 3, imbricate; petals 6-9, imbricate, longer than the sepals; staminate flowers with so stamens, the filaments inserted on a scarcely thickened torus, free or almost so, pilose, the anthers linear, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillate flowers with the ovary echinulate, 1-locular, with 3 parietal placentas, the placentas multi-ovulate, the styles 3 or 4, each one 2-lobed, the lobes laciniate. Fruits baccate, globose, 3According to a note by A. Dugand in the U. S. National Herbarium the correct citation for Dendrostylis should read: Dendrostylis Karsten & Triana in Triana, Nuevos Generos i Especies di Plantas para la Flora Neo-Granadina 27, 1854 (Bogota). bristly, indehiscent; seeds so, the testa red or orange, fleshy; endosperm copious; embryo straight; cotyledons cordate.
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