Plants small, usually low-growing, unarmed. Stems clustered [solitary], erect [creeping, lianoid], slender, unarmed. Leaves: sheaths tubular, unarmed, forming crownshaft; blade pinnate [undivided], with leaf segments regularly spaced along unarmed rachis, in 1 plane [many planes]; plication reduplicate; segments linear-lanceolate, apical pair of segments sometimes wider than others. Inflorescences axillary below crown of leaves, ascending, with 1 order of branching [spicate or 2 orders]; prophyll small; peduncular bracts 5--6, tubular, papery; rachillae green at anthesis, turning orange in fruit. Flowers unisexual, sessile, staminate and pistillate flowers on different plants. Staminate flowers borne singly, partially sunken into fleshy rachillae; sepals 3, briefly connate at base [distinct]; petals 3, ovate, basally briefly connate [connate by tips]; stamens 6, distinct; anthers dorsifixed; pistillode minute. Pistillate flowers borne singly, slightly sunken into fleshy rachillae; sepals 3, free; petals 3, free, ovate; staminodes 6, minute; pistil 1, 3-loculate; ovules 1 per locule; style indistinct; stigmas minute. Fruits drupes, globose; stigmatic scar basal, exocarp black, smooth; mesocarp thin; endocarp bony. Seeds globose; endosperm homogeneous; embryo subapical; eophyll 2-cleft [pinnate], segments linear. nx = 13.
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Small dioecious unarmed palms, mostly arundinaceous with slender ringed or jointed canes or trunks: leaves pinnate, pinnatisect or pinnately veined, minute flowers of differing morphology not distinctly sunken in the rachis or only appar-ently so when crowded, the peduncles bearing few or several sheathing bracts or spathes that may fall or become shredded before fruiting and leave scars or rings that are marks of the genus: spadices inter-or infrafoliar: perianth-parts in two series of 3 each but variously connate and sometimes each series united into one body; stamens 6, often connate: fruit small, hard or thinly succulent only on the exterior, ellipsoid, oblong, somewhat pyriform, stigma basal, seed single, albumen plane (not runinate).
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