Trees or shrubs, dioecious. Axillary buds prominent. Stipules small. Leaves alternate, distichous, petiolate, simple, penninerved, margin serrulate or entire. Flowers unisexual, solitary or fascicled, or in axillary cymes, or terminal or cauliflorous racemelike thyrses. Sepals 5, imbricate, or open. Petals 5, imbricate or valvate. Disk small or absent, rarely larger. Stamens 5-15, 1- or 2-seriate, sometimes unequal, outer stamens alternating with petals, inner ones sometimes absent or reduced to staminodes; filaments free; anthers introrse, thecae longitudinally dehiscent, connective elevated. Ovary superior, 2-5-loculed; ovules 1 or 2 per locule, apical, pendent, orthotropal or anatropal, without obturator; styles 2-5(-10)-lobed. Fruit a drupe, sometimes flattened, more rarely a capsule; endocarp slightly bony or pitted or ridged, sometimes dehiscent by valves. Seeds usually flattened concave, more rarely ovoid, caruncle absent; endosperm present; cotyledons broad and flattened. 2n = 30.

Li Pingtao & Zhang Yongtian. 1998. Pandaceae. In: Xu Langran & Huang Chengchiu, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 43(1): 1-2.

About three genera and 18 species: tropical Africa and Asia; one species in China.

(Authors: Li Bingtao (李秉滔 Li Ping-tao); Michael G. Gilbert)