Plants trees or shrubs, usually with milky latex. Leaves alternate, sometimes stipulate, petiolate, simple, entire, sometimes with translucent dots; stipules small and rapidly deciduous, sometimes absent. Inflorescences of solitary flowers or axillary clusters, sometimes in the axils of fallen leaves. Flowers bisexual or unisexual by abortion, if unisexual, usually female; calyces with 4-8 free sepals or calyx lobes; corollas usually cream-colored or pure white, campanulate to shortly tubular, with 4-8 lobes in 1-2 whorls, sometimes each lobe divided into 3 segments; stamens as many as the corolla lobes and opposite them or more nuerous and in 2-several whorls; antgers with 2 thecae, opening longitudinally; staminodes sometimes prsent between the corolla lobes, variously developed; ovaries suoerior, usually with 5-many cells, ovules solitary in each cell or acending from the inner angle; styles simple. Fruits berries; seeds usually with a hard, smooth, brown, often shiny seed coast, attachment area (scar) usually large, sometimes covering more than half the surface area.
The Sapotaceae are a pan-tropcial family of about 53 genera and 1100 species They are found primarily in humid lowlands and montane or riverine forests, but some genera, such as Sideroxylon, grow in arid areas.