Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Dioecious or rarely monoecious trees or shrubs, occasionally with simple, axillary spines.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades ± coriaceous. Margins glandular serrate or glandular crenate, rarely entire. Pinnately veined. Short-petiolate. Stipules present.

Flowers: Flowers in short, axillary, racemose cymes, each one subtended by small persistent bracts, pedicels articulated near base. Flowers unisexual and plants dioecious. Calyx of 4–8 sepals; sepals slightly connate at base. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens in staminate flower numerous, strongly exserted, pistillate flowers without stamens. Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), sessile, 1-celled, placentation parietal, placentas 2–4(–6); ovules few on each parietal; style absent or short; stigmas 2–4(–6). Staminate flower ovary absent.

Fruit: Berries; pericarp thin and somewhat leathery. Seeds few; usually obovoid; with a thin aril.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: