Shrubs or small trees, usually covered with resinous glands or dots. Leaves simple, alternate, with or without stipules. Flowers monoecious or dioecious, in simple or compound catkins. Perianth none. Stamens 2 to 16, in the axil of each bract. Ovary surrounded by hypogynous scales. Fruit drupaceous, often clothed with fragrant waxy secretions, 1-celled, 1-seeded; seed erect. A small order limited to one genus by some botanists, and divided into two by others; the species number ing between twenty and thirty.