Shrubs deciduous. Buds with imbricate scales. Leaves opposite; stipules free, linear, membranous, caducous; leaf blade simple, ovate, margin sharply doubly serrate. Flowers terminal on branchlets, solitary, bisexual. Hypanthium saucer-shaped, flat. Sepals 4, in 2 pairs, imbricate, leaflike, with 4 epicalyx segments in-between. Petals 4, opposite sepals, white, base shortly clawed. Stamens numerous, in several series. Disk crowning hypanthium, large, thick, dissected into 4 lobes. Carpels usually 4; ovary covered by 4 lobes of disk at flowering; ovules 2, pendulous, 1 abortive; style terminal, exserted, filiform; stigma capitate. Fruit a drupe; epicarp smooth, dry. Seed 1, obovoid; cotyledons plano-convex, adaxially 3-veined. x = 9.

One species: China, Japan, Korea.

(Authors: Li Chaoluan (Li Chao-luang); Hiroshi Ikeda, Hideaki Ohba)