Shrubs or trees , evergreen. Bark gray [pinkish, purplish, or maroon-brown], smooth with small, wartlike lenticels. Leaves alternate [rarely opposite or clustered at tips of branches]. Leaf blade pinnately veined, papery or leathery; surfaces glabrous or variously pubescent; domatia absent. Inflorescences appearing when mature leaves are present, axillary, panicles (rarely heads). Flowers bisexual; tepals deciduous, white or green, equal (rarely unequal), at anthesis mostly erect, glabrous (or pubescent); stamens 3, anthers 2-locular, 2-valvate, apical (or introrse); staminodes 9, 6, 3, or 0; ovary superior, enclosed by deep floral tube. Drupe red or purple, ellipsoid, seated in deep, usually double-rimmed cupule.
