Dioecious or perfect trees or shrubs, stems terete or angled, trunks sometimes buttressed, sap often milky white or yellow. Leaves at first opposite, later often alternate, simple, entire, the margin usually narrowly differentiated and minutely revolute; costa prominent, mostly elevated beneath, lateral veins several-many, straight or arcuate, sometimes forming a partial submarginal vein, mostly with intermediate veins and secondary lateral veins, glabrate, the costa and major veins sometimes minutely puberulent, secretory canals often forming linear streaks on the leaf undersides; petioles mostly slightly canaliculate; stipules want-ing; axillary buds not prominent. Inflorescences mostly terminal, sometimes be-coming axillary or lateral on the stem, occasionally terminal on short shoots, erect or lax cymose panicles, rarely reduced to 1-3 flowers, the axis mostly unbranched, the nodes branching dichotomously, ternately or in verticels, sub-tended by foliaceous or reduced scalelike bracts, the pedicels bracteolate, the bracteoles mostly paired, small. Flowers monoecious or perfect, the buds mostly globose, the outer perianth imbricate, shorter than the bud or overtopping it, sepals mostly 4-6, rotund, the innermost overtopping the bud, often coriaceous, streaked with canals; petals 4-6, imbricate, mostly overtopping the bud, rotund, often fleshy, streaked with canals; stamens numerous, 25-200, some reduced, fewer or reduced in pistillate flowers, the filaments free or the innermost fused and their anthers reduced or abortive, sometimes crumpled in bud, the anthers 2-lobed, 4-locular, minute, bordering the apex of the filament (connective); ovary ovate, glabrous, surmounted by mostly sessile, discoid styles, reduced or obsolete in staminate flowers. Fruit a leathery or fleshy drupaceous capsule splitting from the apex into (4-)5(-6) valves; seeds 1-5, oblong or faboid, basally fixed, envel-oped at least in part by a loose, fleshy aril or arilloid.
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