Members of the family usually have opposite or alternate simple leaves, four- or five-parted flowers clustered in inflorescences or pseudanthia, and drupaceous fruits.

[5][6] The oldest fossil that can be related to Cornaceae is †Hironoia fusiformis, an extinct taxon collected from the Futaba Group sediments at Kamitikaba, Japan.

[7] Although the mosaic of characters in Hironoia precludes assignment to an extant genus, the fiber rather than sclereid composition of the fruit places it within the Nyssaceae-Mastixiaceae.

Other possible Cornaceae from Cretaceous sediments include endocarps resembling Cornus from the Santonian-Campanian mesofossil assemblage of Åsen.

In slightly younger Late Cretaceous sediments (Maastrichtian) four genera of fossil mastixioid fruits (Beckettia, Eomastixia, Mastixicarpum and Mastixiopsis) have been described from Germany.