Small trees or shrubs, bisexual or polygamous (gynodioecious). Leaves flat or convex, shortly petioled, with a few longitudinal, generally prominent, whether or not branched nerves. Inflorescences terminal and/or axillary, from many-flowered spikes to few-flowered clusters, rarely solitary or in twos, each flower subsessile within the axil of a small subtending bract, provided with two or numerous (7-10) bracteoles. Sepals 5, imbricate. Corolla tube ± cylindric, limb ± deeply 5-partite, lobes valvate (sometimes slightly imbricate distally in bud stage), ± expanded to recurved. Stamens generally partially included in the tube, reduced to half their length (and then without pollen) in female specimens; filaments inserted at or slightly below the top of the corolla tube, short, filiform, attached at or near the top of the anthers. Disk truncate, lobed or consisting of 5 distinct scales. Ovary (8-)10(-11)-celled, with 1 ovule per cell; style rather thick, short; stigma small, obtuse, subpeltate or subcapitate. Fruit baccate, ± globular, mostly dark purplish to bluish blackish, rarely pink or light purple at maturity; mesocarp pulpy; endocarp separating or separable into (8-)10(-11) distinct, rather hard pyrenes.
At rather low elevations (from c. 600 m upwards) in Australia, Tasmania, and NW. New Guinea, up to the highest summits in North Borneo (Mt Kinabalu, c. 4000 m), in Central Celebes (c. 3460 m) and on the main range of New Guinea (up to c. 4000 m), as undergrowth in light forest, along forest fringes or in open places, not rarely gregarious, on acid soil.
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