Shrubs or trees, evergreen. Leaves petiolate; leaf blade margin entire or serrulate. Flowers bisexual, solitary or paired. Pedicel usually recurved, seldom erect; bracteoles 2, inserted at apex of pedicel, alternate or opposite, persistent or caducous. Sepals 5, persistent, imbricate, unequal, thick, concave, basally slightly connate. Petals 5, imbricate, outside glabrous or sericeous, basally connate. Stamens 15-60, in 1-5 whorls; filaments connate or distinct, adnate to base of sepals, glabrous or with pubescence; anthers basifixed, oblong, with filiform trichomes, connective projected into an apiculum. Ovary pubescent or glabrous, (2 or)3-5-loculed, placentation axile; ovules 20-100 per locule; style l, simple or apically 3-5-lobed. Fruit baccate, many-seeded, with a persistent style. Seeds brown, minute, foveolate to pitted, shiny; embryo inflexed; endosperm abundant; cotyledons semiterete.

Adinandra stenosepala Hu is the basionym of Xantolis stenosepala (Hu) P. Royen in the Sapotaceae (see Fl. China 15: 209. 1996).

About 85 species: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, S Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; tropical Africa; 22 species (17 endemic) in China.