Unbranched tree up to 18 m with a thick or sometimes slender trunk densely covered, except towards the base of mature specimens, with long, sharp, upwardly directed spines and marked with leaf-scars. Monocarpic. Leaves usually peltate, rounded, up to 1 m ø, deeply palmately lobed, lobes usually with minor lobes and coarsely dentate, apex acute, upper surface bearing few to many long spines, especially on the midrib and principal veins between which the surface is often rugose and glabrous except for the remains of a tomentum of branched hairs, or with many bristles often with woolly hairs on their bases, the under-surface also with few to many long spines and usually clothed with a fawn or greyish woolly tomentum of branched hairs, or densely furnished with bristles usually with woolly hairs on their bases, or occasionally glabrous between the spines except for a few bristles; petiole up to 1 m and 3 cm ø, terete with clasping base, covered with woolly hairs and bearing many spines. Panicle up to 5 m long and 5 m wide, leafless or with lobed bracts c. 10-20 cm long, principal branches spiny especially below, ultimate branches slender, tomentose, bearing linear bracts c. 1 cm long subtending peduncled or sessile umbellules; peduncles elongating as the fruit ripens, up to 4 mm, rather stout, tomentose, bearing 1 or 2 minute bracts. Umbellules bowl-shaped, c. 6-10 mm ø in flower, enlarging slightly in fruit, with an involucre of about 8 ovate bracts, 2-4 mm long and ciliolate distally. Flowers hermaphrodite, maturing in basipetal succession, terminal branches bearing maturing fruit while lower branches bear flowers or unopened buds; usually c. 12-16 (8-20) in an umbellule each subtended by an involucral bract or a narrower receptacular bract and borne on a glabrous pedicel 1-2 mm long. Calyx rim fringed with many lacerate filaments. Petals ovate, 1-2 mm long. Filaments 2-3.5 mm; anthers 0.5-0.75 mm long. Ovary covered with cilia which lengthen as the fruit ripens. Mericarps with rounded ribs, long-ciliate, crowned by the divergent styles.
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