Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Dioecious or rarely monoecious trees, without milky sap, glabrous.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (trifoliate). Alternate. Leaflet margins serrulate. Long-petiolate, petiolules unequal. Stipules membranous.

Flowers: Flowers in axillary panicles arising toward the ends of the branches, staminate inflorescences highly branched, pistillate ones sometimes subracemose. Flowers unisexual. Calyx of staminate flowers with 5 sepals; sepals, subvalvate, hooded. Calyx of pistillate flowers with 5 sepals; sepals imbricate, caducous. Corolla (petals) absent in staminate flowers. Stamens in staminate flowers 5, opposite the sepals; filaments adnate to base of rudimentary ovary; anthers introrse, at first enclosed by the hooded sepals pistillate flower staminodes absent or minute. Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), (2)3(4)-celled; ovules 2 per cell; style short; stigmas (2)3(4), linear–subulate, entire. Staminate flower pistillode short–stipitate, peltate.

Fruit: Berry-like; small; subglobose; endocarp thin; crustaceous. Seeds 3–6 per fruit; seed coat smooth; endosperm copious.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: