Shrub or generally tree. Leaves spiral, entire, penninerved. Flowers bisexual, arranged in lax cymes to elongate panicles, these 1-3 in foliate or defoliate axils, or from older branches resp. from trunk. Pedicels articulated with calyx. Sepals (3-)4-5, connate to a cup in the lower, free (and not imbricate) in the upper half. Petals (4-)5, free, valvate, tip inflexed, villous inside, reflexed in anthesis, early caducous. Stamens 5; filament dilated, short, glabrous; anthers elliptic, cells in-trorsely and longitudinally dehiscent, exceeded by the connective in form of subulate glabrous apiculus. Ovary ovoid, tapering to a thick-filiform style; stigma punctiform. Drupe large; exocarp thin-coriaceous, smooth, early decaying; endocarp first coriaceous and hard, becoming corky and irregularly ± longitudinally lacunose in its outer, and woody (not hollowed) in its inner part in later stages. Seed 1, large; endosperm copious, fibrous, starchy; embryo foliaceous.
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