Plants woody; trees, shrubs, or lianas, sometimes magroves, rarely spiny; indumentum almost always of unicellular, slender, thick-walled, pointed hairs with a distinctive basal cell ('Combretaceous hairs'), sometimes also with glandular hairs. Leaves opposite, alternate, or whorled, simple; stipulesabsent or vestigial; petioles present, often with a pair of glands; blades with pinnate venation. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, spikes, heads, or panicles, rarely racemose; bracts simple, caducous. Flowers bisexual or bisexual and staminate in the same inflorescnce (andromonoecious), radially symmetric,4-5-merous, radially symmetric of, occasionally, weakly bilaerally symmetric; hypanthium present, lower portion surrounding the ovary and extending beyond it into a saucer- to tube-shapped upper portion; calyx with 4-5 lobes, these sometimes vestigial, rarely; corolla of 4-5 separate petals, often small, sometimes conspicuous or absent; stamens 8-10(16), usually exserted; intrastaminal nectifarous disc usually present; ovary inferior, or partly so, 1-celled, with 2(-6) pendulous ovules; style simple. Fruits 1-seeded, indehiscent or tardily dehiscent, dry or fleshy, often winged or ridged; seeds without endosperm.
There are about 20 genera and 400 species in the Combretaceae. They are widespread in the tropics and subtropics.
Qaiser, S. and M. Qaiser. (1978). Combretaceae. Flora of Pakistan 122: 1-11.
Stace, C.A. (2007). Combretaceae. In: Kubitzki K. (ed) Flowering Plants · Eudicots. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, vol 9. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Thulin, M. Flora of Somalia, vol ?, Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK.