
Evergreen, dioecious or monoecious, small trees or shrubs; bark brown, thin; twigs yellow-green to red-brown, winter buds with imbricate scales. Leaves simple, alternate, but sometimes appearing opposite or subopposite, more or less 2-ranked, dark or glossy green above, paler below with a gray or yellow stripe on either side of the midrib, linear, margins entire and revolute; petioles short, attached to a decurrent and persistent peg (sterigma). Reproductive structures axillary, solitary, short-stalked, and surrounded at base by persistent scales; pollen cones globular, with spirally arranged peltate sporophylls each with 4-8 pendent pollen sacs; seeds partially or completely enveloped by a fleshy aril at maturity.