Shrubs or small trees, sometimes climbing, deciduous or evergreen; branchlets conspicuously pithy, most often glabrous, occasionally puberulous when young. Winter buds small, with 2-4 scales. Leaves simple, alternate; stipules caducous, linear-lanceolate; leaf blade membranous to leathery, margin serrate. Racemes or spikes axillary, erect or nodding. Flowers small, regular, bisexual, or plant dioecious, shortly pedicellate or sessile; bracteoles connate at base. Sepals 4, imbricate. Petals 4, imbricate. Stamens 8 in 2 series; filaments subulate; anthers versatile, introrsely longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary superior, 4-loculed; ovules numerous on intrusive-parietal placentae; style short; stigma capitate, shallowly 4-lobed. Fruit a berry, pericarp leathery. Seeds numerous, small, with soft arils; endosperm fleshy; embryo straight; cotyledons elliptic; radicle short. 2n = 24.
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