Trees, evergreen. Branchlets and buds glabrous. Leaves alternate, petiolate; leaf blade ovate or oblong, leathery, glabrous, basal veins 3, with glands in axils of veins, base cuneate or rounded, margin entire. Inflorescences paniculate. Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious or dioecious). Bracts caducous. Male flowers (4 or)5-merous, rarely more. Sepals (4 or)5, oblong, valvate, free or slightly connate at base, abaxially pilose, adaxially glabrous, glandular at base. Petals (4 or)5, obovate or oblanceolate, slightly shorter than sepals, shortly clawed. Stamens 25-35; filaments filiform, slightly connate at base, in 5 fascicles; anthers 2-loculed, basifixed. Ovary 5-loculed; ovules 2 per locule; style 5, very short. Fruit a capsule, ellipsoid or obconic, 5-loculed, loculicidally dehiscent, wings 5, thin. Seeds 1 per cell.

Many authors follow Zhuge (J. Arnold Arbor. 71: 371. 1990) and do not accept the segregation of Excentrodendron from Burretiodendron (but see Gao et al., Acta Phytotax. Sin. 44: 538-550. 2006).

Two species: China, Vietnam; two species (one endemic) in China.