Evergreen trees. Leaf blade papery to leathery, abaxially often papillose and glaucous and rusty tomentose; tertiary veins parallel. Inflorescences short, unbranched or bifurcate, stout, tuberculate by scars of fallen pedicels; flowers densely racemose or subumbellate; bracts caducous; bracteoles inserted on pedicels. Plants dioecious. Flowers red in China. Male flowers often rather large, subglobose or urceolate, with long pedicels. Perianth of 3(or 4) tepals. Filaments connate into stipitate peltate disk; anthers 8-20, short, with bases adnate to margin of disk. Ovary pubescent; style short, stout; stigma lobes connate into a disk with 2 shallow fissures or with lacerate margin. Fruit often with dense tomentum. Aril entire or lacerate at apex.

Knema yunnanensis Hu (J. Roy. Hort. Soc. 63: 387. 1938), described from Yunnan, could not be treated here because no material was seen by the present authors.

About 85 species: S Asia from E India to the Philippines, Papua New Guinea; six species in China.