Trees, shrubs, or herbs, sometimes climbing; leaves spiralled or alternate, usually paripinnate, sometimes imparipinnate to trifoliolate, or simple; leaflets usually alternate if more than 3, often serrate, flowers small, in panicles of racemes or thyrses, sometimes unisexual and the plants polygamo-dioecious, or male and bisexual flowers mixed in one inflorescence; sepals 4-5; petals 4-5 or none, free, often with a scale-like appendage or flap at the base; stamens 5-8, often slightly connate, sometimes excentric; disc annular or of free glands; ovary superior, 2-3- celled, cells sometimes diverging and free at maturity, 1-seeded, the fruit a berry or capsule. A big family of 150 genera and more than 2000 species, chiefly of the tropics. Three genera are indigenous in Guam, and two others are of fairly recent introduction (but both are rare).