Trees or shrubs. Leaves simple, alternate, without stipules, petiolate; leaf blade usually yellow-green when dry, leathery, veinlets reticulate, margin entire. Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic, shortly pedicellate, in racemes or panicles, axillary or terminal; bracts and bracteoles present. Sepals 5, imbricate, inner 2 slightly larger. Petals 5, differing slightly in size, imbricate, sometimes unguiculate, free, keel without apical appendages. Stamens 8; filaments free or 2-4 adherent at base of ovary, other 4-6 adherent at base of petals, ± slightly inflated, pubescent; anthers introrse, usually piliferous at base. Disk annular, fleshy, shorter than ovary. Ovary superior; carpels 2, connate, stalked, 1-loculed, glabrous or piliferous, placentation parietal; ovules 2 to numerous, anatropous; style 1, hairy; stigma capitate, shallowly lobed. Fruit a drupe, globose, fibrous-fleshy when dry, 1-loculed. Seed usually 1; seed coat membranous; caruncle absent; endosperm absent.

About 93 species: mostly in Australia, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia; four species (two endemic) in China.