Trees, shrubs, or scandent shrubs, deciduous or evergreen, always unarmed. Leaves alternate to rarely opposite, papery to subleathery; stipules minute, early deciduous; margin entire, serrate or crenate; venation pinnate or 3-veined from base. Flowers bisexual, 5-merous, mainly few in axillary cymes or small thyrses, sessile or shortly pedunculate. Calyx tube hemisperical; sepals 5, triangular, abaxially rather densely pubescent, adaxially conspicuously keeled, deciduous. Petals 5, erect to spreading, clawed. Stamens 5, ca. as long as petals; anthers dorsifixed, dehiscing introrsely. Disk massive, fleshy, adnate to calyx tube. Ovary semi-inferior, 3(or 4)-loculed, with 1 ovule per locule; style 3-lobed to 3-fid. Fruit a subglobose capsule; mesocarp thin, dry or rather fleshy; endocarp cartilaginous to woody, splitting explosively or slowly into 3 ventrally dehiscent, 1-seeded endocarpids. Seeds shiny, broadly obovoid, rarely with a minute aril; testa leathery to bony; endosperm fleshy, thick.

About 23 species: tropical areas of Africa, S Asia, Australia, Pacific islands, and South America; two species in China.