Erect, much branched, armed or unarmed shrubs. Leaves alternate or fasciculate, simple, entire, rarely 3-lobed at the apex, fleshy, stipulate. Inflorescence a scorpioid cyme. Flowers bisexual, sessile to subsessile, pentamerous, yellowish-green or greenish-white; disc small, fleshy. Sepals 5, free, or basally subconnate, imbricate, fleshy, persistent. Petals 5, free, concave, cucullate, without a claw, valvate. Stamens 15, inserted on disc, filaments naked at the base, anthers oblong. Carpels 3; ovary sessile, beset with long appressed silky hairs, oblong-pyramidal, 3-loculed, each locule with a solitary pendulous ovule; style simple, stigmas 3, decurrent. Fruit 1-seeded, triangular-ovoid, acuminate drupe with bony endocarp. Seed ovoid, exalbuminous; embryo straight, cotyledons linear-ovate.
A small genus of about 7 species; distributed from the Sahara and south Russia to Pakistan and eastern Siberia; 1 in south Australia.
