Gynatrix

Dioecious, perennial shrubs or small trees with stellate indumentum. Leaves alternate, petiolate, entire; stipules deciduous. Flowers in axillary racemes or panicles; male inflorescences usually exceeding leaves, flowers pedicellate; female inflorescences often shorter than leaves, flowers sessile or subsessile; epicalyx absent; calyx hemispherical, 5-lobed from near midway; petals 5, free, white or greenish; stamens c. 20, sometimes paired or in 3s, confined to the apical part of the staminal tube; staminodes present in female flowers, shorter than the style; style-branches and locules 5 (style much reduced in male flowers and not exceeding staminal tube), stigmatic surface along inner part of style-branches; ovules 1 per locule. Fruit a ± globular schizocarp, the mericarps tardily dehiscent from the apex and sometimes also laterally dehiscent about the centre; columnar carpophore prominent.