Trees or shrubs, deciduous or evergreen, rarely with thorns. Perulate winter buds present or absent. Leaves simple, alternate, penninerved, with entire or incised margins, usually with glands on the margins, at base of lamina or on the petiole. Stipules free or rarely connate, often caducous. Inflorescence terminal or axillary, racemose or reduced to an umbel, a fascicle or a solitary flower. Flowers pedicellate to subsessile, bisexual, 5-merous. Hypanthium cupular, usually caducous after flowering. Epicalyx absent. Sepals imbricate, usually caducous. Petals usually white, sometimes pink or red. Stamens 10-many in one or two whorls inserted on the hypanthium. Pistil 1, ovary superior, 1-loculed. Ovules 2, descendent, attached to the ventral wall. Style terminal, stigma capitate. Fruit a drupe or nuculanium (dehiscent drupe); mesocarp fleshy or dry, sometimes dehiscent; endocarp stony or woody, smooth or variously sculpted; seed with thin testa, without endosperm.
A genus of ca. 200 species distributed worldwide, including some cultivated species; represented in Pakistan by 16 species.