Morella Loureiro.

Trees or shrubs evergreen or deciduous, dioecious or monoecious, with resinous, peltate glands in young parts. Leaves simple, often aggregated at apex of shoot, margin entire or serrate; stipules absent. Flowering precocious or coetaneous. Inflorescences spicate, simple or paniculate. Male flowers with 2-8(-20) stamens; filaments free or united at base, with bracteoles or not. Female flowers with 2-4 bracteoles adnate to ovary and enlarged, or free and not enlarged; ovary with resinous glands; style short, with 2 relatively long stigmatic branches. Fruit a drupe, often with headlike, wax-covered papillae; endocarp hard. Seeds erect, with membranous testa.

About 50 species: nearly worldwide except for some warm temperate parts of Old World and Australia; four species (two endemic) in China.