Shrubs or small trees, usually erect, rarely viny or climbing, glabrous, rarely pubsecent, branches often inermous. Leaves alternate, often disitichous, coriaceous, serrate, petiolate; stipules small, caducous. Inflorescences axillary, fasciculate, cymose, rarely racemose, or flowers solitary. Flowers white-green, bisexual, 5-merous. Disk fleshy, annular, undulate or 5-lobed, intrastaminal; anthers longitudinally dehiscent, introrse. Ovary usually 2-locular, rarely 3- or 4-locular, base confluent with disk; ovules erect, often 1 per locule. Capsule obovoid or ellipsoid, leathery, loculicidally dehiscent. Seeds 1-4, ellipsoid; aril basal to enveloping seed.

About 220 species: tropics and subtropics of America, temperate Australasia; six species (five endemic) in China.

(Authors: Liu Quanru (刘全儒); A. Michele Funston)