Trees, deciduous, dioecious. Bark corky, fissured and gray or grayish brown at maturity; inner bark (phloem) yellow. Branchlets dark purplish. Leaves opposite, odd-pinnate; base of petiole excavated, concealing axillary bud; leaflet blades with oil glands restricted to margin, margin subentire to minutely crenulate or serrulate. Inflorescences terminal, thyrsiform. Sepals 5(-8), connate at base. Petals 5(-8), narrowly imbricate in bud. Stamens 5(-7), distinct. Disk columnar. Male flowers: stamens to 1.5 × as long as petals; gynoecium rudimentary, of 5(or 6) fingerlike carpels, basally connate, apically ± divergent. Female flowers: stamens rudimentary, ligulate, much shorter than petals; gynoecium 5(-10)-loculed, syncarpous; ovules 1 per locule; stigma peltate. Fruit a drupaceous berry, black or purplish black, 5(-10)-loculed; exocarp fleshy; mesocarp undifferentiated; endocarp thinly cartilaginous. Seeds brown or black, asymmetrically ellipsoid, dull, inconspicuously rugulose; seed coat with inner layer of dense black sclerenchyma and outer layer of compact parenchymatous tissue; endosperm ± scant; embryo straight; cotyledons elliptic, flattened; hypocotyl superior.
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