Trees, shrubs, or woody climbers, rarely herbs; hairs sclerified and/or silicified, sometimes fasciculate. Leaves simple, rarely pinnatisect or pinnately compound, usually spirally arranged, rarely opposite, petiolate; stipules absent; petiole sometimes winged; leaf blade leathery, herbaceous, or membranous, margin entire or serrate. Flowers bisexual, rarely unisexual, actinomorphic, occasionally zygomorphic, solitary or in racemes, panicles or cymes. Sepals (3 or)4-5(-18), imbricate, persistent, usually leathery or fleshy, sometimes accrescent in fruit. Petals (2 or)3-5(-7), white, yellow, or red, imbricate, crumpled in bud. Stamens numerous (or 1-10), developing centrifugally, free or united basally and then in fascicles; staminodes often present; anthers basifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, apical clefts, or apical pores. Gynoecium (1 or)2-7(-20)-carpellate, superior; carpels free or hemisyncarpous; stylodia free, apically stigmatic; ovules 1 to numerous, anatropous; placentation submarginal, or basal when ovules 1 or 2. Fruit a follicle, polyfollicle, berry, or capsule, or indehiscent and enclosed by fleshy sepals. Seeds 1 to numerous; endosperm copious, oily; embryo very small, straight, achlorophyllous.

Chang Hung-ta. 1984. Dilleniaceae. In: Feng Kuo-mei, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 49(2): 190-195.

Ten genera and ca. 500 species: pantropical and extending into warm-temperate Australia; two genera and five species in China.

(Authors: Zhang Zhixiang (张志翔); Klaus Kubitzki)