The family includes about 530 species of trees, shrubs, and lianas in ca 10 genera.

Three genera, Conocarpus, Laguncularia, and Lumnitzera, grow in mangrove habitats (mangals).

Some members of this family produce useful construction timber, such as idigbo from Terminalia ivorensis.

Many plants in the former Quisqualis genus contain the excitotoxin quisqualic acid, a potent AMPA agonist.

[6] The family name comes from the type genus Combretum; it also includes the white mangrove, Laguncularia racemosa, found along seacoasts in tropical America and West Africa.