Tall erect slender unarmed monoecious pinnate-leaved palms with conspicuous brace-roots, notable crownshaft and often with bulged trunk: pinnae irregular, often split so that several of them appear to stand together on the rachis, usually broadened towards the apex and variously lobed or notched or erose at summit: spadices infrafoliar, below the prominent crownshaft, inclosed at first in papery cymbas: flowers typically in 3's on the simple rachillae (which are side-branches from the axis of the spadix), central flower pistillate and the laterals staminate but this disposition may not apply uniformly and a rachilla may be pistillate mostly on its lower part and staminate on the upper part; stamens usually fewer than 20, about equal in length to the broad envelopes, anthers long and filaments very short; pistillate flowers smaller than staminate; ovary 3-loculed, stigmas small, staminodia sometimes present: fruit subglobular, oblong or ovoid, 1-to 2-seeded; albumen homogeneous, embryo lateral or dorsal.
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