Shrubs or small trees, deciduous, dioecious, unarmed. Buds with imbricate scales. Leaves alternate, simple. Inflorescences axillary, between leaves or basal to leaves, racemose or in female plants often reduced to solitary flowers. Sepals 4, basally connate. Petals 4, imbricate in bud. Stamens 4 but rudimentary in female flowers, distinct. Disk 4-lobed, broadly flattened in male flowers. Gynoecium 4-carpelled but rudimentary or lacking in male flowers; ovaries basally connate, otherwise coherent, each with 1 ovule; style terminal, of 4 coherent stylar elements; stigma capitate, 4-lobed. Fruit of 1-4 basally connate follicles each with a stylar beak; endocarp cartilaginous, discharged elastically with seed at dehiscence. Seeds black, subglobose to broadly ellipsoid, glossy; seed coat sclerenchymatous, thin and brittle; endosperm ± scant; embryo straight; cotyledons suborbicular, flattened; hypocotyl partly included between cotyledons.

One species: E Asia.

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