Trees or shrubs, the bark and wood bitter. Leaves alternate, even-or odd-pinnate, persistent; leaflets (3-)8-16(-21), alternate or rarely opposite, entire, more or less coriaceous, shortly petiolulate. Inflorescences large, complex, terminal and axillary panicles. Flowers small (4-)5(-6)-merous, unisexual, the plants dioecious; sepals (4-)5(-6), connate at least basally, imbricate; petals (4-)5(-6), green or whitish to yellow, much longer than the sepals, imbricate; stamens (8-) 10(-12), ca. as long as the petals, rudimentary or absent in carpellate flowers, the filaments subulate, with an adaxial pubescent appendage basally, the anthers oblong to sagittate, versatile; intrastaminal disc more or less cushion-shaped, reduced in staminate flowers, enlarging in fruit; gynoecium (4-) 5 (-6)-carpelled, rudimentary or absent in staminate flowers,-the carpels sessile on the disc, 1-loculed, cohering or weakly connate axially to form a deeply (4-)5(-6)-lobed ovary, soon separating following pollination, the ovules 1 per locule, pendulous, anatropous and epitropous, placentation axile, the styles connate into a short column, the stigmas (4-)5 (-6), slender and divergent in carpellate flowers, short and lobed in bisexual flowers, and absent from staminate flowers. Fruit a drupe, 1-5 per flower, ellipsoid to obovoid, slightly compressed laterally, usually ridged, the mesocarp thin, the endocarp crustaceous; seeds 1, the testa thin and mem-branaceous, the endosperm absent, the embryo straight, the cotyledons plano-convex and fleshy, the radicle short and superior.
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