Deciduous trees, to 15 m high, bark grey-brown, rough, irregularly flaking. Leaves simple, altemate, bifarious on short deciduous branchlets, closely overlapping, subsessile, oblong or linear-oblong, apex obtuse and shortly apiculate, base round, glabrous, membranous, nerves obscure; stipules minute, lateral, linear. Flowers unisexual, 2-3 mm across, greenish-yellow, densely clustered in leaf axils. Male flowers: tepals 6, oblanceolate, 1.5 mm, obtuse, stamens 3, anthers oblong, connate by their connectives; apiculate; disc glands 6. Female flowers: tepals 6, oblanceolate, obtuse; ovary superior, 1.5 mm, 3-celled; ovules 2 in each cell; styles 3, broadly fimbriate, recurved, stigmatiferous. Fruit a capsule subglobose, dehiscing into 6 cocci, disc enlarged to give an appearance of fleshy yellowish green, indehiscent berry.