Trees, infrequently shrubs, unarmed. Leaves alternate, short-petiolate, the stipules large, foliaceous, caducous, the blade rather large, rounded to cordate at the base, the margins entire to remotely repand-serrate, epunctate, penninerved. Inflorescences axillary, paniculate-spicate, the flowers sessile and densely crowded or not along the secondary rachises (spikes), elongated in fruit. Flowers small, y, each one subtended by a bract and 2 bracteoles, these small and closely appressed along the rachis; calyx urceolate, thickened, 4-gibbous or 4(-5)-angulate (com-pressed by the crowding of the flowers along-the rAchis), 4-lobed, persistent, the lobes small, rounded, membranous, biseriately imbricate; petals none; stamens 4, inserted within the calyx tube, the filaments alternate with the calyx lobes, the anthers introrse, longitudinally dehiscent, exserted or not; ovary sessile, 1-locular, with 4 parietal, many-ovulate placentas; style very short, the stigma obscurely 4-lobed. Fruits baccate, coriaceous, the seeds numerous, exarillate, each seed sur-rounded by a thin membrane (small compartment, of placentary origin?), the testa foveolate-alveolate.
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