Shrubs or rarely small trees, monoecious, often resinous. Latex…. Indumentum…. Leaves spirally alternate, exstipulate, mostly shortly petiolate, marginal glands absent. Inflorescences racemose (rarely paniculate), terminal on stems or axillary branches, with 1 or 2 female flowers basal on the axis and few to several male flowers distal to them, bracteate. Flowers pedicellate, gamosepalous; pedicels stouter in female flowers; calyx deeply (4-or) 5-lobed; petals present; disc present. Male flowers: stamens 10–30, free and erect on flat or slightly convex receptacle; anthers of two separate obloid, parallel but contiguous locules, each transverse on slightly swollen apex of filament, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; pistillode absent. Female flowers: calyx persistent, lobes appressed to ovary; ovary 3-locular; locules uniovulate; style short or ± obsolete; stigma with 3 horizontal and spreading limbs, becoming decurved or recurved with age; limbs red, entire, ±dorsi-ventrally flattened, glabrous, persistent. Fruit capsular, trilobate, smooth, glabrous, separating septicidally into three 2-valved cocci leaving a persistent columella. Seeds smooth, carunculate; caruncle waxy-fleshy; endosperm copious; cotyledons narrower than the radicle.
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