Small or medium-sized very spiniferous monoecious irregularly pinnate-leaved trees with solitary or soboliferous armed trunks, spadices interfoliaceous: leaves pinnate and pinnatisect, spine-bearing on the long sheaths and petiole as well as usually on rachis and sometimes on under side of pinnae themselves, the pinnae usually broadest toward apex and cuneate at base, erose or dentate or jagged at the truncate or expanded summit, alternate or clustered on the rachis: spadix long and slender-branched, at first erect but becoming horizontal or pendent, attended by narrow more or less spiny spathe-valves that do not permanently inclose it and are not cymba-like: flowers small and numerous; staminates mostly on upper part Of rachillae and pistillates on lower part but typically 1 pistillate between 2 stami-nates, sometimes an entire spadix mostly pistillate; sepals and petals 3 each, petals usually valvate in both sexes; stamens 6, in one group (Macroanthera) linear and flower-bud longer than broad, in the other group (Brachyanthera) very short and suborbicular and flower-bud as broad as long; ovary 3-loculed; staminodia in some species represented by a toothed cup: fruit a colored 1-seeded little drupe with either fleshy or firm mesocarp, globose or subglobose, usually 1-2 cm. thick, 1-seeded; nutlet or seed globular, rugose or pitted, albumen continuous and solid.
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