Trees, evergreen, monoecious. Leaves paripinnate, estipulate, rachis terete; leaflets serrate or entire. Thyrses often multibranched, axillary or several fascicled near apex. Flowers unisexual or polygamous, actinomorphic. Sepals 5, free, valvate. Petals 5, sometimes 6 or 7, not or hardly clawed, with 1 large scale adaxially. Disk cupular, contracted above middle, margin thin, deeply wavy. Stamens (male and bisexual flowers) 8, sometimes 9, exserted; filaments filiform, usually unequal in length; anthers ellipsoid, connectives large, slightly prominent. Ovary (female and bisexual flowers) turbinate, 3-lobed and 3-loculed; ovules 1 per locule; style inserted between ovary lobes, nearly as long as or slightly longer than ovary. Capsules deeply lobed into 3 schizocarps, only 1 or 2 developed, loculicidal into 3 carpels; pericarp rigid, woody. Seeds subglobose or slightly flat; testa pale brown, shiny, leathery, arillode absent; hilum transversely elliptic, large; embryo curved.

Lo (Acta Phytotax. Sin. 17(2): 36. 1979) recognized Amesiodendron integrifoliolatum and A. tienlinense, but the distinctive features of each have been recorded for A. chinense elsewhere and are regarded here as synonyms of A. chinense (see also Leenhouts in Adema et al., Fl. Males., ser. 1, 11(3): 465-467. 1994).

One species: S China, Indonesia (Sumatra), Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam.