Micrococca Benth.

Dioecious or monoecious annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, rarely small trees, with a simple indumentum. Buds not perulate. Leaves alternate or sometimes the lowest opposite, petiolate, stipulate, stipellate, simple, crenate or serrate, membranous, penninerved, often purplish tinged. Inflorescences axillary, solitary or fasciculate, pedunculate or not, spicate or racemose, with the flowers arranged interruptedly in clusters along the axis; clusters ♂ or ♀, or else with 1 ♀ and several ♂ flowers each. Flowers bracteate, subsessile or pedicellate. Male flowers: calyx closed in bud, ± globose, apiculate, later splitting into 3(–4) valvate lobes; petals 0; stamens 3–30, usually biseriate, filaments free, short, anthers extrorse, basifixed, the thecae obovoid, free except at the base, longitudinally dehiscent; disc-glands free, equalling the stamens in number or 0, interstaminal; receptacle slightly convex; pistillode 0. Female flowers: calyx 3(–5)-partite, the lobes imbricate, larger than in ♂; petals 0; disc-glands hypogynous, (2–)3(–6), often staminodioid and alternating with the cocci; ovary (2–)3(–4)-locular, with 1 ovule per locule; styles free, spreading, linear, stigmas fimbriate-or plumose-laciniate. Fruit (2–)3(–4)-coccous, or monococcous by abortion, septicidally and loculicidally dehiscent, separating septifragally from a crustaceous or woody columella; pericarp thin; endocarp crustaceous. Seeds subglobose, enclosed by a thin aril; testa crustaceous, foveolate-reticulate, sometimes muricate or smooth; albumen fleshy; cotyledons suborbicular, sometimes scarcely larger than the radicle.