| Diagnostic characters : | Trees with black bark, exudates absent. Leaves veins distinctly arching and anastomosing at margin, visible on mature leaves only. Flowers unisexual on different trees. Flower calyx with 3 green sepals 3, green, persistent in fruit. |
| Habit : | Evergreen shrub or small tree up to 12 m high, branches ascending. |
| Trunk & bark : | Bole straight. Bark fissured, blackish, lenticelled. |
| Branches and branchlets or twigs : | Branchlets and twigs unarmed, terete, glabrous while young twigs slightly pubescent. |
| Exudates : | Exudate absent. |
| Leaves : | Leaves simple, alternate and distichous, 3-11 by 1.5-7 cm, oblong or elliptic or obovate, apex acute, base acute to attenuate or slightly rounded, margin entire, blade coriaceous, glabrous on both sides.
Midrib flat above, primary vein single, secondary veins oblique to the midrib, widely parallel, tertiary veins oblique. Petiole pubescent later glabrescent. Stipule absent. |
| Inflorescences or flowers : | Flowers unisexual on separate trees, male flowers grouped in cyme, sessile or subsessile. Female flowers solitary, rarely grouped in cyme. Pedicel less than 5 mm long. |
| Fruits : | Fruit berry-like, ellipsoid to globose, 1-1.5 by 0.5-1 cm sized; young fruit green, woody and glabrous when mature, 3 sepals persistent. |
| Seeds : | 1 to 3 seeds, rarely 6. |