Trees or shrubs, sometimes scandent. Leaves simple, alternate, exstipulate, usually coriaceous, glandular. Inflorescence racemose or short fascicled. Flowers small, 4-5-merous, bi- or uni-sexual. Sepals 4-5, free or basally connate, persistent. Corolla 4-5-lobed, with very short to conspicuous tube. Stamens 4-5, epipetalous, opposite to corolla-lobes; staminodes in flowers sometimes quite large; anthers 2-celled, introrse. Ovary superior, rarely semi-inferior, 1-locular with few to many ovules on a basal or free-central placenta, often sunk in placental tissue; style and stigma simple or stigma lobed. Fruit a drupe or a berry, 1 to many-seeded; seeds globose with fleshy or horny endosperm.