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Shrubs or trees, rarely scandent; trunks and branches often armed with prickles, the branchIets prickly or unarmed, the bark and wood aromatic. Leaves alternate, odd-or even-pinnate, rarely 1-3 foliolate, persistent or deciduous; petiole and rachis terete or angled, often winged, unarmed or prickly; leaflets opposite to alternate, entire to crenate, frequently inequilateral, pellucid punctate at least marginally, often glandular punctate and with numerous minute peltate scales on both surfaces. Inflorescences axillary and/or terminal panicles, some-times corymbose, racemose, or spikelike. Flowers small, regular, white to greenish yellow or red, unisexual or rarely bisexual, the plants dioecious, rarely monoecious or polygamous; sepals 3-5 or apparently absent, free to connate, persistent or deciduous; petals 3-8, free, imbricate or valvate; stamens 3-5, opposite the sepals, rudimentary or absent in carpellate flowers, the filaments free, unappendaged, the anthers elliptic to ovate; intrastaminal disc small and annular or obscure; gynoecium of 1-5, sessile to stipitate, free or connate carpels, rudimentary or absent in staminate flowers; ovary 1-5-loculed, the ovules 2 per locule, collateral, pendulous, the styles sublateral, connate to free, the stigmas capitate, free or connate. Fruits of 1-5 sessile to stipitate, coriaceous to fleshy, 2-valved, 1-seeded, free to connate, glandular-punctate follicles; seeds ovoid, obovoid, subglobose, or lenticular, often remaining attached to the placenta by the funiculus at maturity, the testa crustaceous, black, brownish, or reddish, lustrous, the endosperm fleshy, the embryo axial, straight or curved, the cotyledons flat, the radicle short.
Shrubs, trees, or woody climbers, dioecious, evergreen or deciduous, usually armed. Trichomes simple. Leaves alternate, mostly pinnate or trifoliolate. Inflorescences paniculate or sometimes racemose, terminal and/or axillary or infrafoliar. Flowers comparatively lax, 4-merous. Sepals persistent in fruit. Petals distinct, ± narrowly imbricate, glabrous, deciduous in fruit. Stamens (rudimentary or lacking in female flowers) 4, distinct. Gynoecium (rudimentary or lacking in male flowers) a 4-carpelled subapocarpous pistil or 1-carpelled; ovules 2 per locule; style central-apical and composed of 4 contiguous stylar and stigmatic elements or excentric and composed of single stylar and stigmatic elements. Fruit usually of 1 or 1–4 basally connate follicles; exocarp subfleshy; abortive carpels persistent; ventral endocarp lacking; remaining endocarp cartilaginous, glabrous, adnate. Seeds solitary, ovoid to globose, nearly as large as follicles, persistent in dehisced follicles, with sclerotesta, sarcotesta, and shiny black or reddish pellicle; endosperm copious or scant. Embryo straight; cotyledons flattened or plano-convex, orbicular to elliptic in outline; hypocotyl terminal, considerable narrower than cotyledons.
Deciduous or evergreen aculeate shrubs or trees; trunk usually with bosses. Leaves imparipinnate, alternate; leaflets (1–)2–12(or more)-jugate, opposite or alternate1 sessile to petiolulate, usually ± asymmetric, crenulate, serrate or entire, dotted with pellucid glands. Inflorescence of terminal and/or axillary panicles or of racemes borne at the base of new branches below the leaves. Flowers unisexual by abortion, usually on separate plants, 4–5-merous. Sepals usually persistent and very small. Petals valvate or slightly imbricate. Male flowers: stamens opposite the sepals; gynophore short; ovary vestigial. Female flowers: staminodes rudimentary; gynophore short; ovary of 1–2 carpels (1 sometimes aborts), each 1-locular and with 2 subapical collateral pendulous ovules (1 aborts); style terete, oblique, incurved; stigma discoid or subcapitate. Fruit a subglobose dehiscent 1-seeded follicle or pair of follicles, glandular-foveolate. Seed subglobose, black, shiny.
Fls unisexual, our spp. dioecious, (3)4–5-merous, the stamens as many as and alternate with the pet; carpels 2–5, the ovaries distinct, the styles coherent above; ovules 2, collateral, pendulous; fr from each carpel a firm-walled or somewhat fleshy follicle, dehiscent across the top, the 1 or 2 seeds often hanging from a long funiculus; shrubs or trees with prickly stems, alternate, odd-pinnately compound lvs and clusters of small greenish or whitish fls. 200+, mainly of warm reg.
