Trees or shrubs, rarely herbs. Leaves alternate or very rarely opposite, simple or digitately or pinnately divided, often large; stipules adnate to the base of the petiole or wanting. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or polygamous or diœcious, usually arranged 8–Fl.page 226in simple or compound umbels, less often in racemes or panicles. Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary; limb truncate or toothed or almost obsolete. Petals usually 5, seldom 4 or more than 5, valvate or slightly imbricate. Stamens as many as the petals, and inserted with them round the margin of an epigynous disc; filaments usually inflexed. Ovary superior, 2- to many-celled, rarely 1-celled; styles as many as the cells, free or connate; ovules solitary, pendulous, anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, indehiscent; epicarp usually succulent; cells 2 to many, 1-seeded. Seeds pendulous; testa membranous; albumen copious, fleshy; embryo minute, radicle next the hilum.

An order very closely allied to Umbelliferæ, principally differing in the arborescent habit, valvate petals, ovary usually more than 2-celled, and succulent fruit. The species are mainly tropical or subtropical, few of them extending into the temperate zones. Genera 40; species about 350. The properties of the order are unimportant. Of the 6 genera found in New Zealand, Stilbocarpa and Pseudopanax are endemic; Aralia mainly belongs to the north temperate zone, Meryta and Schefflera are chiefly Polynesian, while Panax has a wide range in the Old World.