Shrubs, small trees, rarely subshrubs or perennial herbs, evergreen, monoecious or rarely dioecious. Leaves simple, alternate or opposite, exstipulate, margin entire or dentate, venation pinnate or triplinerved. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, racemose or densely spicate, bracteate. Flowers small, regular, unisexual. Male flowers: tepals 4-6 or rarely absent; stamens 4, 6-8, or numerous; central pistillode present or lacking. Female flowers: tepals 5 or 6 or several; carpels 2 or 3; ovary superior, 2- or 3-locular; styles 2 or 3, free, persistent; stigma broadly recurved; interstylar nectaries present or lacking; ovules 2 per locule, pendent, anatropous, bitegmic, crassinucellar; micropyle formed by inner integument or by both integuments. Fruit a loculicidal dry capsule or a fleshy berry. Seeds black, shining; endosperm fleshy; embryo erect; cotyledons thin or plump.

Based on recent molecular data, the South American genus Styloceras Kunth ex A. Jussieu is included within the Buxaceae, and the African Notobuxus Oliver is included within Buxus.

Cheng Mien. 1980. Buxaceae. In: Cheng Mien & Ming Tien lu, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 45(1): 16-60.

Four or five genera and ca. 70 species: Africa, America, Asia, Europe; three genera and 28 species (21 endemic) in China.

(Authors: Min Tianlu (闵天禄 Ming Tien-lu); Paul Br點kner)