EBENACEAE  

Trees, shrubs or undershrubs, dioecious. Leaves alternate, subopposite or subverticillate, simple, coriaceous. Flowers in axillary racemes, pseudoracemes, pseudocymes, panicles, or solitary. Calyx 4- or 5-lobed, persistent. Corolla urceolate to subglobose and shallowly 5-8-lobed on mouth or campanulate and deeply 4- or 5-lobed. Stamens 10-30, free or filaments joined at base in pairs or groups; filaments shorter than anthers; anthers dehiscing by lateral, longitudinal slits; staminodes present or absent in female flowers. Ovary on a fimbriate, somewhat fleshy disc, 2-6-locular, with a single, pendulous ovule in each locule, or locules incompletely septate and then with 2 ovules; styles 1 or 2(3). Fruit a berry, 1(2 or 3)-seeded. Seeds usually globose or, if 2 or 3 together, then hemispherical or 3-angled, marked into 3 areas by a curved groove as in a tennis ball; endosperm usually flinty. x = 15.