Trees, evergreen, up to 15 m tall; branches with 1 prophyll, young shoots and petioles stellately tomentose or with sessile peltate scales; buds perulate. Leaves distichous (rarely spiral), shortly petiolate; stipules ovate or elliptic, caducous, leaving small scars; leaf blade often oblanceolate, leathery, base cuneate, margin entire or nearly so, venation pinnate, sometimes with 3 basal veins, often glabrescent. Plants andromonoecious. Inflorescence a condensed panicle or botryoid, each axis terminated by a flower, axillary or terminal on short lateral branches, few-flowered; bracts 3-lobed. Flowers male or bisexual, distichously (or rarely spirally) arranged. Floral cup urceolate to cupshaped, subtended by (often stipulate) sepal-like bracts, often ± ascending on one side. Male flowers sessile, bisexual flowers often pedicellate. Sepals and petals absent. Stamens (1–)5–6(–15), anther thecae 2-sporangiate, each dehiscing by a longitudinal slit. Male flowers with reduced carpels. Ovary superior, enclosed by long floral cup, ovules 1 per locule; stigmas decurrent. Capsules arranged distichously (rarely spirally) along rachis, partly stalked. Seeds ellipsoid.

About six species: China, Laos, Malaysia, New Guinea; five species (four endemic) in China.