Dioecious trees, quite glabrous or with a simple indumentum. Leaves alternate or subverticillate, often crowded at the shoot-apices, petiolate (petiole very variable in length), stipulate, simple, entire, penninerved, varying greatly in size. Inflorescences terminal, subterminal or axillary in the axils of the uppermost leaves, shortly pedunculate, paniculate, solitary; bracts resembling the stipules, the males several-flowered with the flowers glomerulate, the females 1-flowered. Male flowers subsessile; sepals (4–)5, imbricate; petals (4–)5, somewhat smaller than the sepals; disc-glands 5, epipetalous; stamens 5, episepalous, alternating with disc-glands, filaments free, anthers introrse, medifixed, connective apically pigmented and glandular, thecae parallel, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode obconic-cylindric, truncate and slightly trilobate at the apex. Female flowers shortly pedicellate; sepals and petals ± as in the ♂ flowers or petals 0; disc shallowly cupular, 5-lobed, the lobes alternating with the sepals; ovary 3-locular, with 2 ovules per locule; styles 3, ± free, short, shortly bilobed, papillose. Fruit ± ellipsoid, loculicidally dehiscent into 3 valves; exocarp crustaceous; endocarp thin, horny; columella persistent, tripartite. Seeds 1 per locule by abortion, compressed ovoid-ellipsoid, often remaining attached to the columella after dehiscence, shiny; exotesta papyraceous, reddish brown; mesotesta spongiose or chartaceous, white; endotesta thin, crustaceous; albumen scanty forming thin strata; embryo straight; cotyledons broad, flat.
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