Slender climbing or clambering pinnate-leaved monoecious palms supported by spine-like modified pinnae and sometimes by hooked prickles on rachis and under-surface of leaves; pinnae alternate or opposite or multiple, the rachis ending in one or more sets of nodal leaf-spines pointing backwards and that are often bulbous at base, the end of the leaf often long and tendril-like: spadices interfoliar, short, once-branched, covered by 2 cymbas of which the interior one is large and more or less persistent and spiniferous or hairy or both on the exterior: staminate flowers occupying the upper part or the ends of the slender simple rachillae, stamens 6, pistillode sometimes present, calyx minute; pistillate flowers mostly near base of rachilla but sometimes occupying nearly all of it and the plant per-haps functionally more or less dioecious, ovary 3-loculed, stigmas 3: fruit small, drupe-like although the exterior is scarcely fleshy, ovoid or subglobose, 1-seeded, with 3 pores; seed with homogeneous albumen.
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