Trees or shrubs, often armed or thorny. Leaves alternate or fascicled, compound, l-3 (or more)-foliolate, imparipinnate; leaflets sessile or subsessile, serrate, crenate, or entire. Flowers solitary or in fascicles of 2-5 or in panicles, small, sessile-subsessile, bisexual or unisexual. Calyx cupular, urceolate or tubular, 4 toothed or lobed, persistent. Petals 4, valvate. Stamens mostly 8, inserted on the margin of the annular or cupular disc, filaments usually unequal, dilated at the base. Ovary ovoid, sessile, 2-4-loculed, each locule 2 ovuled; syle short with 2-4 obtusely lobed stigma. Fruit a drupe, globose or subglobose, compressed or not.