Trees or shrubs, deciduous; trunks often armed with simple and branched thorns
at base; branchlets usually with axillary thorns. Leaves alternate, chartaceous or subcoraiceous, crenato-serrate to subentire with glands beneath teeth or at margins, pinnately veined; stipules absent. Flowers in axillary, bracteate racemes, racemose clusters or
panicles on short branches or reduced to solitary flower; pedicels articulated near inseriton. Sepals 4 - 8, imbricate, scale-like, subequal, subpersistent. Petals absent. Disc fleshy, extra-staminal, of distinct glands, annular or lobed in females. Male flowers:
stamens numerous, often surrounded by glandular disc; anthers subglobose, basifixed;
pollen tricolporate, reticulate, prolate to spheroidal. Pistillode absent. Female flowers:
Carpels 2 (-3), connate into unilocular ovary; ovules 2 to few on 2 - 4 parietal placentae;
sty e usually connate, rarely free or absent; stigma dilated, usually 2 - 3-lobed. Fruit
small, a rather dry berry, globose; pericarp thin coriaceous. Seeds few, obovoid; aril
thin; testa smooth, crustaceous; cotyledons broad.
Tropical and subtropical regions, except Africa; ca 104 species, 3 in India.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Leaves usually oblong-elliptic, elliptic-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, long acuminate at apex, 7 - 22 cm long, pinnately veined from base
2
b. Leaves usually broadly ovate or ovate-elliptic, not long acuminate at apex, 3 - 5 cm long, usually 3 - 5 - pliveined at base
2a. Leaves chartaceous, subnitidus dark reddish brown on drying, mostly attenuate at base; secondary veins 6 - 7 pain, abruptly curved upwards towards apex and gradually diminishing near margin; styles in fruits 0.75 - 1 mm long
b. Leaves coriaceous, conspicuosly glossy, blackish pen above on drying, mostly cuneate at base; secondary veins 8 - 12 pairs, gradually curved upwards towards marqin and branch to end near maqrin; styles in fruits up to 0.25 mm long or absent (stigma sessile)
