Shrubs or trees with resin or aromatic oil. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite or fascicled, usually pinnately compound or decompound, l-3 (—or more) foliolate, imparipinnate. Flowers in panicles, solitary or sometimes fascicled, bisexual or unisexual (plants then diclino or polygamodioecious), actinomorphic and hypogynous. Calyx 3-6 fid or partite forming a tube, lobes imbricate or valvate. Petals 3-6, free, rarely connate below, imbricate or valvate. Disc annular or cupular, rarely absent, free or adnate to the calyx tube. Stamens in l-2 whorls, as many as or twice the number of petals, free, or rarely connate at the base; anthers usually versatile, dithecous, with longitudinal dehiscence. Carpels 2-5, syncarpous; ovary sessile or stipitate, 2-5-loculed; each locule 2(-1) ovuled; placentation axile; style 1 or absent; stigma 2-5-lobed or undivided. Fruit drupaceous, indehiscent with 2-5 pyrenes or dehiscent. Seeds usually with membranous testa and without endosperm.