Small tree with very hard wood; branches spreading, rigid, smooth; leaves alternate, distichous, entire, orbicular, obovate or elliptic, shortly acute at apex, rounded at base, nerves 5-8 pairs, coriaceous, glaucous beneath; petiole slender; flowers unisexual, small or minute in axillary clusters or monoecious spikes; bracts minute; in male flowers: calyx 5-cleft, limbs lanceolate, valvate, thick, basally comate; petals minute, linear; disk of male flat or pulvinate; stamens-5, anther cells parallel, filaments united into a column in the centre of the disk; pistillode 3-lobed, free, spreading above; in female flowers: parianth deeply lobed; ovary globose, quite glabrous, 3-celled, ovules-2, pendulaous in each; styles 3, thick, shortly 2 fid; disk conical, turbinate, annular with an inner, fimbriate corona, enclosing ovary; capsules trigonous or globose, shortly stalked, dark brown; seeds globose, brown, smooth, shining, without aril.