Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, entire. Flowers small, unisexual (plants dioecious), in di- or trichotomous cymes, axillary, terminal, or opposite leaves; staminate cymes many flowered; pistillate cymes few flowered; bracts small. Sepals united in a 4- or 5-lobed cup. Petals 4 or 5, cohering in a short tube, valvate. Staminate flowers with stamens 4 or 5; filaments fleshy, clavate, 2 or 3 × as long as anthers, pilose, rarely glabrous, free from corolla tube. Disk pulvinate, coherent with ovary or reduced ovary. Pistillate flowers with stamens undeveloped or without pollen; disk often absent; ovary terete or obovoid; stigma capitate or discoid, sometimes 2- or 3-lobed, sessile. Drupe usually with persistent stigma at apex.

Gomphandra, traditionally in the Icacinaceae, is resolved as one of the five genera contained in a strongly supported clade based on ndhF, rbcL, atpB, and 18S rDNA genes, which led to the establishment of a new family, Stemonuraceae (Kårehed, Amer. J. Bot. 88: 2259-2274. 2001).

About 33 species: tropical Asia to NE Australia; three species in China.