Shrubs or small trees, dioecious, deciduous. Branchlets smooth, usually slightly zigzagged. Stipules small, caducous. Leaf blade margin sharply serrulate, crenate, or subentire. Inflorescence a raceme or panicle of thyrses. Flowers usually 4- or 5-merous. Male flowers: stamens inserted on disk margin; filament subulate; anther subglobose or ellipsoid. Female flowers: disk cup- or ring-shaped; ovary semi-immersed in disk, mostly 2-loculed; ovules 2 per locule, basally attached, erect. Fruit a ± dry berry, subglobose or depressed globose, 2-4-seeded. Seeds subglobose, erect; aril thin.

About 20 species: tropical America, NE Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, Pacific islands, Philippines; three species (two endemic) in China.

A new species has been recently described from Yunnan and Myanmar (Bartholomew, Armstrong & Fritsch, 2021. PhytoKeys 183: 67–76).