Shrubs or trees, dioecious, evergreen, unarmed. Trichomes simple. Leaves opposite or rarely in whorls of 3, simple. Inflorescences paniculate or racemose, axillary. Flowers 4-merous, globose or subglobose in bud. Sepals persistent in fruit. Petals narrowly imbricate, persistent or deciduous in fruit. Stamens 8, alternately unequal in length, without pollen in female flowers; filaments ± elliptic-oblong or lanceolate, ciliate, otherwise glabrous or nearly so, persistent in fruit or at least proximal portion of antisepalous filaments persistent (and ± concealed) in axils of sepals. Gynoecium (rudimentary and with neither fully developed ovules nor fully differentiated stigma in male flowers) syncarpous, 4-loculed; ovary velutinous, apparently lacking septicidal fissures; ovules 2 per locule; style apical, velutinous proximally; stigma peltate, broadly 4-lobed. Fruit syncarpous, 4-loculed, drupaceous, subglobose to obovoid, rarely with apical septicidal fissures; carpels connate for full length; outer part of pericarp with fleshy, glabrescent exocarp and woody or subwoody mesocarp; endocarp cartilaginous. Seeds solitary or in pairs, obovoid to reniform, with enlarged chalazal region, otherwise irregularly roughened; testa with thick sclerotesta and outer layer of compact parenchymatous tissue with patches, or large areas, of spongy tissue; endosperm copious. Embryo straight or slightly curved; cotyledons flattened, elliptic or narrowly so; hypocotyl terminal, considerably narrower than cotyledons.
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