Shrubs or herbs. Leaves stipulate; leaf blade compound, rarely simple, margin usually serrate. Carpels many, free; ovary superior, rarely inferior; ovules 1 or 2, pendulous or erect, anatropous. Fruit an achene (torus sometimes fleshy and berrylike), rarely a drupelet. x = 7, 8, 9.

About 35 genera and 1500 species: nearly cosmopolitan, especially in temperate and subarctic regions of N hemisphere; 22 genera (one endemic) and 457 species (240 endemic) in China.