Microdesmis

Dioecious shrubs or trees, sometimes lianescent; hairs simple. Leaves alternate, petiolate, simple, entire or dentate, penninerved, pellucid-dotted; stipules small, usually persistent. Inflorescences: flowers small, shortly pedicellate, fasciculate in leaf axils; male ones multiflowered, female ones few or nearly solitary. Male flowers: sepals (4)5(6), imbricate; petals 5, free, larger than sepals, imbricate-contorted; stamens 5, antesepalous, arising on a fleshy disc or receptacle adnate to the rudimentary ovary; filaments short; anthers small, with +/- parallel thecae dehiscing longitudinally; rudimentary ovary columnar, ovoid or trifid. Female flowers: calyx and petals as in male flowers; disc absent; ovary 2-5-locular, fleshy in upper part; styles 2-5, short, bipartite, papillose-laciniate; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit an indehiscent drupe, hardly lobed and smooth when fresh, mesocarp fleshy, endocarp woody, muricate, (1)2-5-locular, black. Seeds without caruncle; testa crustaceous, shiny; cotyledons ovate, flat; endosperm fleshy.