Trees or shrubs , evergreen. Bark dark reddish brown [brown, or gray], smooth with small wartlike lenticels. Leaves alternate. Leaf blade pinnately veined, papery or leathery; surfaces variously pubescent; domatia absent. Inflorescences appearing when mature leaves are present, axillary, panicles, usually many-flowered. Flowers bisexual, 5-17 mm diam.; tepals deciduous, white or greenish, equal, spreading at anthesis, with papillose hairs on adaxial surface; stamens 9, anthers 4-locular, anthers of outer 6 stamens introrse, locules arranged in arc, anthers of inner 3 stamens extrorse; staminodes 3, very small, sometimes absent. Drupe dark blue or black, ± elongate, seated in shallow [or cup-shaped], single-rimmed cupule.
