Information

Shrubs or trees, entirely glabrous. Leaves persistent, alternate, serrate or serrulate, rarely subentire, penninerved, petiolate; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers bisexual, axillary, solitary or in few-flowered racemes or fascicles, sweet-scented; bracts scale-like, minute; pedicels with 1–3 scaly bracteoles in the lower half. Sepals 4–5(–6), free except at the base, imbricate. Petals 0. Stamens very numerous, free, inserted towards the edge of a slightly concave receptacle; filaments filiform; anthers small, introrse, dorsifixed near the base. Ovary sessile or shortly stipitate, 1-locular, the one parietal placenta with rather few horizontal ovules in 2 rows; stigma subsessile, large, peltate, with a median furrow. Fruit a fleshy berry with ± 6 discoid seeds; testa crustaceous, white, glossy.