Langsdorffia Mart.

Rhizome lobed, creeping or upright, often dichotomously branched, tomentose and sometimes glabrescent. Inflorescence dioecious or rarely monoecious, capitate to clavate, the peduncle terete, thick, enclosed at the base by a short, lobed or toothed sheath, above the sheath vested with many imbricate scales, the scales in the basal portion ovate to oval-lanceolate, gradually becoming progressively lanceolate towards the flower-head, the head globose, ovoid or ellipsoid, staminate generally larger than the pistillate, yellow, yellowish-red or red, the staminate flowers sub-tended by reduced pistillate flowers, the pistillate flowers agglutinate into a dense mat, ebracteate. Perianth in the staminate flowers composed of 3 or rarely 2 concave tepals, valvate; in the pistillate flowers reduced to an epigynous collar, obscurely 2-or 4-lobed. Stamens as many as the tepals and opposite them, exserted, the filaments short, connate into a staminal column, the anthers connate below and free above, each with 4 pollen sacs at the base and 2 at the apex, extrorse; absent in the pistillate flowers. Pistil 1, the ovules 1, fused to the ovary wall, the style 1, erect, filiform, deciduous, the stigma minutely papillate; pistillode absent in the staminate flowers. Fruit drupaceous, with fleshy epicarp and hard endocarp.