Monoecious or dioecious shrubs. Leaves 3-costate, alternate, serrate, rugose above silvery or greyish tomentose beneath; stipules interpetiolar, bilobed. Inflorescence of paniculately or spicately arranged, sessile, globose, capitate unisexual clusters of flowers. Flowers bracteate. Calyx of male flowers (3-)4(-5) lobed, lobes ovate, valvate or apically sub-imbricate; ventricose-tubular, contracted and minutely 4-toothed succulent and persistent in female flowers. Stamens as many as calyx lobes. Ovary more or less adnate to enveloping calyx, straight; style generally absent, rarely short, stigma penicillate, deciduous; pistillode elliptic, glabrous or hairy at base. Achenes adherent to fleshy calyx, pericarp brittle. Seed endospermic.