Shrubs or small trees. Terminal node of each flush usually with one, sometimes two pairs of subpersistent incipient bracts. Stipules minute, early caducous, or exstipulate (?). Leaves decussate or opposite, glabrous (except in one extra-Mal. sp.), entire. Flowers sessile or subsessile, in axillary or extra-axillary dichotomous or paniculate cymes, sometimes condensed to sessile clusters, at the base of the flush, bisexual (sometimes unisexual by abortion in extra-Mal. spp.), 5-or 4-merous. Calyx deeply lobed, lobes almost free, persistent, imbricate, unequal in size, the outer 2 or 3 usually smallest. Petals slightly united at the base, sometimes free (M. bivalvis), imbricate, erect. Stamens usually dorsifixed; filaments subulate, usually united at the base into (? inserted on) a ring or short tube (the ring sometimes interpreted as a disk) (except in Mai. in M. tenuis and M. te-trameris), the united part free from the petals or sometimes adnate to them (in M. tenuis stamens even inserted in the mouth of the corolla); anthers broad-ovoid or ovoid, introrse, rarely extrorse (M. discolor). Ovary free, completely or incompletely 2-celled. Ovules 2 in each cell, erect, collaterally attached to the axis towards the base at the inner angle (see below); style very short or cylindric; stigma obscure, or discoid, sometimes slightly 2-4-lobed. Capsule short-apiculate to beaked, rarely obtuse, lengthwise striate, laterally split along one side, sustained by a persistent calyx. Seed usually 1, erect, on a knob-like thickened placenta, albuminous, enveloped by the aril, usually wrinkled, testa similar to aril, smooth, soft, red or red-brown.
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Small trees or shrubs, evergreen or deciduous, glabrous, rarely pubescent; bark gray-brown; branchlets terete to somewhat quadrangular. Leaves opposite, entire, often revolute, estipulate. Inflorescences axillary, extra-axillary, or terminal, cymose, fascicled, or thyrsoid. Flowers bisexual, rarely unisexual, dioecious, 5-merous (occasionally 4-6-merous); sepals persistent in fruit, slightly enlarged; petals white or yellowish white. Disk shallowly calathiform to annular or absent, intrastaminal; anthers longitudinally dehiscent, introrse, rarely extrorse. Ovary 2-or 3-locular; ovules erect, 2 per locule. Capsule ellipsoid, leathery, not enclosed in or sitting on fleshy perianth parts, 1-locular, laterally split along one side. Seed 1, ovoid, furrowed, coat often slightly fleshy and aril-like.
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