Glabrous shrubs or trees. Flowers heterostylous, fragrant, arranged in short axillary few-flowered racemes; pedicels subtended by a caducous bracteole. Calyx small, 5(-6)-dentate or-lobed, not accrescent; petals (4-)5(-6), initially coherent, finally free, linear-oblong, concave, inflexed with their membranous crenulate margin, hairy within; stamens usually twice the number of petals, rarely fewer by abortion, the epipetalous ones shorter, their filaments adnate to the petals, the episepalous ones longer, their filaments almost free, anthers small, oblong; disc obscure; ovary free, 1-locular, with 2 or 3 anatropous pendent ovules, style rather short, slenderly columnar, stigma subcapitate, 3-lobed. Drupe with a thin pericarp and crustaceous endocarp; seed 1, endosperm copious, corrugate-sublobate, exclusively containing fatty substances, with a small embryo at its apex.
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