Knema Lour.

Trees, dioecious; stilt-roots sometimes present. Twigs without lenticels, flaky or not. Leaves not breaking easily when dry (veins with sclerenchym sheaths), lower surface pale, not papillose, dots present or absent; reticulation dense, distinct. Inflorescences rarely supra-axillary; a sessile or to 5 (-10) mm long pedunculate, simple or 2-(or 4-)fid, wart-like or worm-like densely scar-covered brachyblast, 1-17 mm long, with a slow unlimited growth; basal cataphylls absent; bracts minute, caducous; flowers in apical subumbels (few-flowered in female). Flowers pedicellate, not fragrant, bracteole minute, often at a distance below the perianth, usually persistent. Male flowers: perianth ± rotate, (thinly) carnose, inside glabrous or pubescent (rare), greenish creamy, pink or red; buds (sub)globose or (ob)ovoid, cleft to c. 1/2 to nearly to the base, lobes 3(-5), spreading at anthesis; androecium stalked, androphore cylindrical or tapering, rarely with few hairs, androecium (or staminal disc) flat or convex (or mammillate) with at the margin 3-25 stellately attached ellipsoid anthers, (half-)sessile or shortly stiped (see also Fig. 34). Female flowers: buds (ob)ovoid or ellipsoid, ovary pubescent, style short or absent, stigma ± 2-lobed and each lobe again 2-many-lobulate. Infructescences sessile, with one or few fruits. Fruits ± ellipsoid, 2-5 cm long, tomentose or early glabrescent (never glabrous as in some species of Horsfieldia and Myristica); pericarp leathery; aril entire or laciniate at the apex only. Seeds ellipsoid, not variegated; albumen ruminate with a fixed oil and starch; cotyledons divaricate or suberect, scarcely or only very slightly connate at the base.