Shrubs or trees, unarmed. Leaves alternate, odd-pinnate [or rarely digitately 3-foliolate and/or 1-foliolate]. Inflorescences terminal or terminal and axillary, paniculate. Flowers bisexual, ellipsoid or broadly ellipsoid to obovoid to oblong in bud. Calyx cup-shaped, shallowly 5-lobed or -toothed. Petals 5, valvate in bud. Stamens 10, distinct, alternately unequal in length; filaments sublinear, ± straight. Disk annular or columnar. Gynoecium 3-5-loculed, syncarpous; radial walls of locules becoming curved after anthesis; ovules 2 per locule; style to 1.5 × as long as ovary, deciduous in fruit. Fruit a berry with neither pulp nor pulp vesicles; endocarp membranous. Seeds ellipsoid; seed coat membranous; endosperm lacking; embryo straight; cotyledons broadly elliptic, thin, convolute and/or folded; hypocotyl superior.

About ten species: S and SE Asia, Australia, SW Pacific islands; two species in China.

(Authors: Zhang Dianxiang (张奠湘); Thomas G. Hartley)