Shrubs or trees, usually dioecious, rheophytic. Leaves alternate, willow-like, entire or
toothed, penninerved, densely and minutely glandular lepidote-scaly beneath, shortly petioled;
stipules small, caducous. Inflorescences many or few-flowered axillary, unbranched spikes or
racemes, often from old wood. Male flowers: calyx deeply 3-partite, splitting into 8 valvate
segments; petals and disc absent; stamens numerous, largely connate into several paniculate
or dendroid fascicles which are coherent at base in a dense globose head; anther-thecae
subglobose, divaricate, sessile on the filament; connective obscure; pistillode absent. Female
flowers: sepals 5 (or 6), unequal, imbricate, caducous; petals and disc absent; ovary 3-loculed,
globose; ovule solitary in each locule; styles spreading, entire; stigmas 3, sessile, laciniate on
inner surface. Fruits capsular rhegmas, flattened, 3-lobed, tricoccous, smooth, puberulous,
sometimes with soft prickles ending in rigid bristle; seeds covered by red arillode; testa
crustaceous, hard with a thin fleshy coat; endosperm fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat.
India to S. China, Taiwan, Malesia and New Guinea, 3 species; all in India.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Leaves densely lepidote-scaly beneath; spikes 10 - 15 cm long
