Trees or shrubs, sometimes climbing. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, simple or lobed, exstipulate. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or unisexual, usually cymose. Calyx 4–5-toothed or -lobed, free or adnate to the disc. Petals usually 4–5, free or more or less connate into a tube, valvate or rarely imbricate. Stamens as many or twice as many as the petals, free or adnate to them; anthers 2-celled. Disc hypogynous, usually cup-shaped, free or adnate to the ovary or calyx. Ovary free or partly immersed in the disc, 1-celled or imperfectly 2–5-celled; style simple; stigma entire or lobed; ovules 2–3, rarely 1, pendulous from the apex of a central placenta or from the side or apex of the cavity. Fruit usually drupaceous, 1-celled, 1-seeded; albumen fleshy, rarely wanting; embryo minute, radicle superior.

Genera about 40; species not far from 200; widely spread in tropical and subtropical regions, many of them very imperfectly known. The single New Zealand genus extends through Norfolk Island to Australia.