Large acaulescent herbs with often massive, obliquely creeping or vertically growing tubers, seasonally dying back and dormant. Leaves solitary, subtended by several basal cataphylls. Juvenile leaves entire, sagittate-hastate or ± completely divided by narrow fissures into 3 obtriangular main segments. Mature leaf with petiole erect, cylindric, not pulvinate apically, usually covered with short prickles; blade divided into 3 main segments, each segment further much divided pinnately and dichotomously into numerous lanceolate to trapezoid lobes, ultimate lobes trapezoid, apex truncate to broadly bifid with acuminate tips, decurrent; venation reticulate. Inflorescences solitary, produced before or with leaves; peduncle shorter than petiole, usually prickly (smooth in A. boehmii). Spathe longer than spadix, erect, boat-shaped, not convolute, acuminate. Spadix with pistillate basal part contiguous with apical staminate part, fertile to apex. Flowers unisexual, without perigon. Stamens subsessile; anthers lateral, dehiscing by oblique subapical slits and overtopped by thick truncate connective, or dehiscing by apical pores. Ovary unilocular, the single ovule borne on basal placenta; style shortly conic or lacking, sometimes deflexed sharply towards spadix base; stigma bilabiate and V-shaped, discoid or depressed-globose. Berries large, oblong-ellipsoid, fleshy, borne in cylindric spike, 1-seeded. Seed large, obovoid, without endosperm; testa thin.
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