Plants shrubs or small trees. Leaves alternate, simple, usually petiolate; stipules usually small, caducous; blaes usually pinnately-veined, sometimes 3-veined from the base, often with pellucid glandular dots and lines (use 10X lens against light); margins entire or toothed. Inflorescences  axillary, usually sessile or short pedunculate, few-many clusters, sometimes of solitary flowers; bracts papery or scalelike, generally ovate, small and congested at fascicle base and forming a persistent cushion. Flowers usually pedicellate; sepals 4 or 5, overlapping, united at the base to form a shallow or deep cup, free above, cup never adnate to the ovary; petals absent; glandular disk present, adnate to the inside of the calyx cup, rim lobed, lobes triangular, oblong, or clavate, either alternating with the stamens or inside them, usually hairy; stamens (6-)8-10(-12), filaments attached to the rim of the glandular disk; ovary superior, 1-celled, with 2-4 placentas, each with several ovules; style 1, sometimes 3-branched distally, stigmatic region capitate, 3-lobed if style not branched. Fruits capsules, fleshy to leathery, globose, ellipsoid or 3-angled when fresh, usually 6-ribbed when dry, (2)3(4)-valved, valves often boat-shaped, sepals, disk, disk lobes, filaments usually persistent at the base and the style base at the top; seeds several, arillate, aril completely covering the seed and often brightly colored, partly fimbriate. 

Casearia includes about 180 species that grow in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world.