Tall, glabrous, dioecious, perenuial herbs. Leaves alternate, exstipulate, imparipinnate. Flowers in axillary or terminal racemes bearing clusters intermixed with simple leaves. Male flowers: calyx divided into 3-4(-5) unequal lobes; petals absent; stamens 8-12(-25), filaments short, anthers two-celled, membranous, dehiscing longitudinally. Female flowers: calyx 3-8-Iobed; petals absent; gynoecium inferior, 3-4(-5)-carpellary, syncarpous, with 3-4(-5) parietal placentae, ovules many; styles 3-4(-5), free, deeply bifid; stigmas equal to the number of the placentae and opposite the lobes of calyx. Fruit a pedicelled, narrowly oblong, pendulous, 3-4(-5)-ribbed, coriaceous capsule, opening at the top between the styles. Seeds numerous, minute, exalbuminous.