Shrub or small tree up to c. 10 m, rarely reaching 20 m and 25 cm ø, glabrous in its vegetative parts; buds enclosed in long sheathing leaf-bases. Leaves spaced with distinct internodes, usually c. 30 by 22 cm or more, ± regularly pinnately incised, frequently as deep as the midrib, lobes oblong-acuminate and decurrent on the midrib, c. 21l2 cm wide or more, the lobing sometimes irregular, and occasionally the blade entire and broadly ovate (up to 25 by 20 cm) or rarely lanceolate, leaf margin either entire or coarsely dentate, especially on the terminal lobe; petioles 5-12 cm, broadly channelled above, clasping the stem with a slightly dilated base, exstipulate. Panicles terminal, or occasionally in the upper axils, to 50 cm long, pendulous, puberulous; main bracts caducous, but the minute bracteoles often persisting until anthesis. Flowers numerous, small (buds c. 2.5 mm long), fragrant, creamy or red-tinged, ovary, calyx lobes and petals densely covered in a minute but coarse puberulence. Male flowers with the corolla persistent during anthesis, petals c. 1.5 mm long, strap-shaped, spreading, stamens c. 1 mm with flattened filaments and round anthers; stylopodium a succulent disk with a concave centre; styles absent, the ovary 1.5 mm long, narrowly turbinate, without a loculus. Female flowers with the corolla caducous at anthesis together with the staminodes, styles divergent from their gibbous bases, ovary ovate with a single loculus (two abort early); ovule pendulous. Fruit usually obliquely ellipsoid, tapering to the apex and c. 3-4.5 cm long, but rarely subspherical, white when immature, ripening to purplish or black, juicy; exocarp fleshy, endocarp chartaceous. Seed broadly ellipsoid, 2-2.5 cm long, with the surface patterned with deep ruminations.
Frequent in evergreen primary rainforest, also in open bamboo forest and secondary growths, from sea-level to c. 1250 m, in Borneo up to 1500-1800 m. Fl.fr. Jan.-Dec.
Uses. The only use, once mentioned, is from Brunei, as "leaves make good ghost medicine".
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