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Male flowers: sepals 5(6), imbricate; petals 5, small, or absent; disk glands 5, free, interstaminal, alternating with the sepals, thick; stamens 5, opposite the sepals, filaments free, anther-thecae distinct, introrse, parallel and pendulous at first, later extrorse, divaricate and erect, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode large, obconic, turbinate or cyathiform, truncate and entire or 3–5-lobed.
Female flowers: pedicels patent, elongating and deflexing in fruit; sepals somewhat connate at the base, otherwise ± as in the male; petals smaller than in the male, or absent; staminodes sometimes present; disk hypogynous, annular, crenulate; ovary 3-locular, ovules 2 per locule; styles 3, free or connate at the base, recurved, bifid; stigmas ± smooth.
Inflorescences axillary, solitary (in Flora Zambesiaca area), geminate or fasciculate, pedunculate, spicate, racemose or rarely paniculate, few-to many-flowered; flowers 1 per bract.
Seeds ovoid-subglobose to obovoid-pyriform, carunculate; testa thin, striate, shiny; endosperm copious, fleshy; cotyledons greenish.
Fruit 3-lobed, dehiscent into bivalved cocci; pericarp thin, separating from the thinly woody endocarp; columella persistent.
Leaves alternate or subfasciculate, shortly petiolate, stipulate, simple, entire or subentire, penninerved.
Dioecious, rarely monoecious, trees shrubs or perennial herbs.
Indumentum simple.
