Perennial, evergreen small tree or shrub; branchlets slender, angled or compressed, woody, glabrous, erect ending in spines; leaves alternate, distichous, elliptic-obovate, quite entire, emarginate; flowers minute, axillary pedicelled, dioecious, apetalous, greenish-yellow in axillary clusters; male flowers numerous, clustered; females subsolitary; male flowers with tepals-5, subpetalous, ovate, concave, imbricate; stamens 5 or fewer, exserted, alternating with disk glands, filaments free, anthers erect, lobes parallel; disk annular, toothed; pistillodes large, 2-3 bifid; female flowers with tepals as in males; ovary 1-3 clled, globose, ovules-2 in each locule, styles recurved, elongate, entire, united below, notched or bifid at apex; capsules globose, coriaceous with fleshy epicarp, white, dehiscing into 2-valved cocci; seeds 3-6, minutely punctulate.