Ceratia Adanson.

Trees, evergreen, small or medium-sized, with a dense crown. Leaves abruptly pinnate; stipules small or absent; leaflets 2-4 pairs. Flowers small, polygamous or plants dioecious, in short, solitary or fasciculate racemes. Inflorescence lateral on current-year branchlets; bracts and bracteoles caducous, scalelike, minute. Calyx tube turbinate; lobes 5, deciduous, toothlike, short, imbricate. Petals absent. Stamens 5; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid, versatile. Disk within stamens, horizontally spreading. Ovary shortly stalked, at middle of disk; ovules numerous; style very short; stigma peltate. Legume compressed, elongated, thickly leathery, inde­hiscent, between seeds by pulpy areas continuous with endocarp. Seeds numerous.

One species: native to the Mediterranean region, introduced and cultivated elsewhere including China.

(Authors: Chen Dezhao (陈德昭 Chen Te-chao), Zhang Dianxiang (张奠湘); Kai Larsen, Supee Saksuwan Larsen)