Shrubs or rarely small trees. Leaves entire, serrate, or dentate at margin, usually punctate. Inflorescences racemose, often paniculate; bracts small; bracteoles 2, usually subtending base of calyx. Flowers 5-merous, bisexual or polygamous. Calyx funnelform, adnate to ovary, lobes valvate. Corolla white or yellowish, campanulate, often punctate-lineate. Stamens free, included. Ovary semi-inferior or inferior, aborted in staminate flowers; ovules numerous, on a globose free-central placenta. Style as long as or longer than stamens; stigma entire or 3-5-lobed. Fruit globose or ovoid berries or drupes with a crustose endocarp, apex ± covered by persistent calyx, often longitudinally orange punctate-lineate. Seeds small, numerous, angular, embedded in a hollow placenta.

About 200 species: primarily in Old World tropics; 29 species in China.