Shrubs or small trees, evergreen; branches with 1 prophyll, glabrous or stellately lepidote; buds naked. Leaves petiolate; stipules minute, caducous, leaving small scars; leaf blade leathery, base rounded to cuneate, margin entire or shallowly toothed towards leaf apex, venation brochidodromous, sometimes with 3 basal veins, lepidote, glabrescent. Plants andromonoecious. Inflorescence a short, dense, spike, terminal on short lateral branches, pedunculate, sometimes recurved, flowers spiral, terminal flower absent; each flower with a large simple bract and without bracteoles. Flowers male or bisexual. Sepals 5 or 6, irregular. Petals absent. Stamens 5–10, inserted on margin of floral cup; filaments equal or unequal; anthers ellipsoid, red, thecae 2-sporangiate, each dehiscing by a longitudinal slit, connective apiculate. Male flowers: floral cup short, rudimentary ovary present or absent. Bisexual flowers: floral cup urceolate, stellately lepidote. Ovary superior, but enclosed by floral cup; ovules 1 per locule; styles subulate, slender, divergent; stigmas decurrent. Capsules arranged spirally along rachis, usually ovoid-globose, woody, tomentose, dehiscing by two 2-lobed valves, persistent floral cup shorter than capsule, splitting irregularly. Seeds narrowly ovoid; endosperm thick; embryo straight. 2n = 36.

Two or three species: China, NE India (Assam); two species (both endemic) in China.