Shrubs or small trees. Branchlets glabrous or puberulous. Racemes axillary or at defoliate nodes; bracts narrowly lanceolate, ovate, or ± rounded, densely imbricate, margin hyaline and ciliate, usually caducous. Flowers bisexual, usually 3 per bract. Racemes glabrous. Pedicels glabrous or puberulous. Tepals 3 or 4(or 5), free, oblong, apex acute. Filaments filiform. Disk annular, fleshy. Ovary conic to cylindric. Stigma sessile. Drupe mesocarp thinly fleshy; embryo with 3 cotyledons.

Seven species: tropical Africa, SE Asia; one species in China.