Shrubs or trees, frequently scandent epiphytes when juvenile, sometimes epi-phytic at maturity, glabrous or variously pubescent. Leaves simple or palmately compound, lobed or entire; petiole often dilated at the base but without a prom-inent extended ligule. Inflorescence with heads racemosely arranged in a terminal raceme or panicle, the peduncles swollen distally, the flowers sessile or essentially so, subtended by 2 or more bracteoles, the heads globose or ellipsoid, bracteolate. Flowers polygamo-dioecious (rarely polygamo-monoecious), (4-) 5 (-6)-merous; calyx cupuliform, the limb short, undulate, truncate or denticulate; petals usually submembranaceous, subacute at the apex, white or greenish, valvate; stamens inflexed in the bud, the anthers oblong, obtuse at both ends; styles in staminate flowers 1 or 2, slender, vestigial, in the pistillate flowers 2-10, free or slightly connate at the base, the ovary thick-walled, the locules as many as the styles. Fruit subglobose or ellipsoid, surmounted by the persistent calyx-limb, the styles often deciduous, the seeds as many as the locules or fewer by abortion.
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