Monoecious annual or perennial herbs or shrubs. Indumentum stellate. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate, simple, subentire, repand-dentate or sublobate, penni-, subtripli- or palminerved, often plicate or bullate when young, with 2 glands at the base of the blade. Inflorescences pseudoaxillary, supra--axillary, lateral or ± leaf-opposed, spicate, racemose or subpaniculate, distally ♂, proximally ♀. Male flowers solitary to their bracts; pedicels short; calyx closed in bud, splitting into 5 valvate lobes; petals 5, distally imbricate and coherent; disc 5-lobed, the lobes alternating with the petals; stamens 3-15, filaments connate into a column, anthers 1-3-seriate, oblong, erect, longitudinally dehiscent: pistillode 0. Female flowers borne on 1-4-flowered peduncles; pedicels long, often elongating and reflexing in fruit; sepals 5, open in bud; petals 5, smaller than in the ♂, or 0; disc ± as in the ♂; ovary 3-celled, with 1 ovule per cell; styles 3, connate at the base, ± erect, bifid. Fruit schizocarpic, leaving a columella; endocarp thinly woody. Seeds usually smooth, ecarunculate but enveloped in a thin pale shiny aril; albumen thick, fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat.