This is a small family in West Africa, of nine genera and c. 80 species, of entirely woody plants, trees, shrubs and lianes. Guiera is a monospecific genus endemic to West Africa, while Conocarpus and Laguncularia, of two species each, and Anogeissus (11 species), are each represented by a single species in West Africa. Only Combretum and Terminalia are represented by several to many species. All the above genera are, however, important ecologically, Terminalia also economically.

Members of the family may be recognised by their simple, exstipulate entire leaves and congested racemose inflorescences which may be axillary, extraaxillary or terminal. The flowers are small, actinomorphic and epigynous, and are followed by winged fruits. Both opposite (verticillate) and alternate leaf arrangements occur in the family. Ptyxis is usually conduplicate, in Quisqualis and Terminalia supervolute.

Introduced species include Terminalia catappa (Indian almond), a handsome tree with ‘whorls’ of branches and red senescent foliage. The fruit is a green fibrous drupe, which floats in water.

The indumentum (in all hairy species) is characteristically composed of non-glandular compartmented unicellular (‘combretaceous’) hairs, ± glandular multicellular stalked glands and ± glandular multicellular scales, these last being distinguishable by a hand lens. Quisqualis, for example, has stalked glands, Guiera scales, but Combretum spp. may have either, while Pteleopsis, Terminalia and Conocarpus have neither.