Small trees or shrubs, without stinging hairs. Leaves alternate (or opposite outside Flora area), often distichous, petiolate; stipules caducous, intrapetiolar, connate, membranous, 2-lobed or entire; leaf blade papery, 3(-5)-veined, often tomentose abaxially, base asymmetric, margin crenate-serrate or entire; cystoliths punctiform. Inflorescences axillary, pedunculate, densely globose clusters of unisexual flowers (plants often dioecious); glomerules solitary or in dichotomous cymes. Male flowers: perianth lobes 4 or 5, valvate; stamens 4 or 5; rudimentary ovary ovoid, glabrous or woolly. Female flowers: perianth small, cupular, 4 or 5-lobed or -toothed, adnate to base of ovary. staminodes absent. Ovary obliquely ovoid, stigma sessile, penicillate, with tuft of long hairs; ovule orthotropous; Achene somewhat drupaceous, slightly compressed, with ± fleshy pericarp. Seeds with thin endosperm; cotyledons elliptic.

About 35 species: tropical Asia and Pacific Islands; one species in China.

(Authors: Chen Jiarui (陈家瑞 Chen Chia-jui); Ib Friis, C. Melanie Wilmot-Dear)