Shrubs or trees, rarely to 3 m tall, dioecious or rarely polygamo-monoecious, all parts glabrous. Branchlets blackish brown, unarmed. Leaves 5-11-foliolate; rachis terete; lateral leaflets opposite, sessile or subsessile; terminal leaflet with petiolule 1-3 mm; leaflet blades ovate to lanceolate, 6-11 × 3-5 cm, oil glands clear but dark reddish brown to blackish brown when dry, midvein adaxially impressed or plane, secondary veins 11-15 on each side of midvein, base rounded to subcordate or oblique, margin serrulate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences terminal, usually on lateral branchlets, to 30-flowered. Pedicel 5-8 mm. Perianth in 2 irregular series or 1 series, with 7-9 ± undifferentiated tepals. Tepals basally pale yellowish green and apically dark purplish red, lanceolate to oblanceolate, ca. 1.5 mm. Bisexual flowers: stamens 3 or 4; carpels 4. Male flowers: stamens 6-8. Female flowers: carpels 3 or 4; styles recurved; stigmas capitate. Fruit pedicel dark purplish red, 1-2 cm; follicles dark purplish red, ca. 5 mm in diam., with sparse protruding oil glands, apex subrounded or shortly beaked. Seeds ca. 4 × 3-4 mm. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Aug-Sep.