Cavanilla Salisbury (1796), not J. F. Gmelin (1792), nor Thunberg (1792); Hartia Dunn; Malachodendron Mitchell.

Shrubs or trees, evergreen or deciduous. Winter buds laterally compressed; bud scales 1 to several, imbricate. Petiole short, narrowly to widely winged, wing sometimes enclosing and concealing axillary and terminal buds; leaf blade ovate, lanceolate, or elliptic, papery to leathery, base cuneate to rounded, margin serrulate to serrate, apex acuminate, acute, or apiculate. Flowers axillary, solitary to several arranged in a short raceme, pedicellate. Bracteoles 2, close to sepals, persistent or rarely caducous. Sepals 5, imbricate, persistent, basally connate. Petals 5, white or yellowish white, imbricate, basally slightly connate. Stamens numerous, basally connate into a short tube and adnate to petals; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary superior, 5-loculed with 2-4(-7) ovules per locule, placentation axile but nearly basal; style connate or distinct. Capsule ovoid to conic, 5-ribbed, 5-loculed with (1 or)2-4 seeds per locule, loculicidal, enveloped by persistent sepals, apex acute or acuminately rostrate; pericarp splitting into 5 valves; columella abortive or ± apical 1/2 abortive. Seeds small, obovate, angular and wingless or planoconvex with a narrow marginal wing; testa crustaceous, shiny; embryo small, straight; cotyledons subrounded, clasping, embedded in copious fleshy endosperm.

About 20 species: China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Vietnam; E North America; 15 species (14 endemic) in China.