Evergreen shrubs or small trees, glabrous. Leaves opposite, entire or crenulate; stipulate. Inflorescences axillary, cymose, 1-4 × dichotomous. Flowers bisexual, 4-merous; petals green-yellow, green-white, red, or purple. Disk fleshy, annular, 4-angled or lobed; stamens on disk; anthers obliquely dehiscent, latrorse. Ovary immersed in disk, 4-locular; ovules pendulous, 1 per locule. Capsule subglobose, leathery, pallid, cinereous-luteous or cinereous-brunescent, surface usually with densely squarrulose macula or smooth, loculicidally dehiscent. Seeds 1-4, ovoid or rounded, basal 1/3-1/2 covered by aril.

Glyptopetalum reticulinerve C. Y. Wu ex G. S. Fan & Y. J. Xu (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 27: 129. 2007) was recently described from evergreen forests at 600-800 m in SE Yunnan (Hekou, Honghe). We have not treated it here because we were unable to examine any specimens.

About 20 species: tropical and subtropical Asia; nine species (seven endemic) in China.

(Authors: Liu Quanru (刘全儒); A. Michele Funston)