Aquifoliaceae

Deciduous shrubs with smooth bark with corky spots, dots or lines (lenticels) on young branches, alternate stalked simple leaves, and produce colourful stone fruit on stalks arising from the leaf axils and containing 3 to 5 bony nutlets. Mostly grow in wetlands.

Flowers on stalks arising from the leaf axils, small, solitary or clustered, radially symmetrical; blooming before the leaves have fully expanded. Flowers usually producing pollen or seeds but often not both, often, but not always, on separate plants. Sepals, petals, stamens and carpels each 4 to 6. Sepals and petals often slightly fused. Stamens often attached to the base of the petals. Ovary above the point of attachment of the other flower parts (superior); style extremely short. No nectary disk.

Fruit a colourful (usually red) stone fruit that contains 3 to 5 (usually as many as the carpels) bony stones or nutlets.

Leaves alternate, spiral, simple, elliptic to round, with a pointed tip, the edges with or without teeth. Leaf stalks may be smooth or hairy; veins on leaves arising from both sides of central mid-vein. Stipules minute.