Trees, generally tall and with straight, angular or ± deeply grooved bole, rarely treelets or shrubs, dioecious. Leaves spiral, almost distichous, entire, penninerved, at least initially covered with fascicled or star-shaped, early going hairs, and/or subpersistent star-shaped, flat, finally silvery scales with a distinct darker centre, as are branchlets and inflorescences; petioles not rarely transversely wrinkled as in Gonocaryum. Flowers axillary, the ♂ ones in interrupted, glomerulose, mostly to panicles arranged spikes, sessile, subglobular in bud, each subtended by a small persistent bract, the ♀ ones in few-flowered short cymes, each on a distinct pedicel and subtended by a subpersistent bract immediately below the calyx lobes. Calyx lobes (4-)5, slightly imbricate, small, persistent. Petals (4-)5, small, valvate, glabrous, inflexed at apex, shortly connate at base, absent in the ♀ flowers. Male flowers: Stamens (4-)5, inserted with short filaments at the tube of the petals; anther cells ovoid-2-celled, basifixed, laterally (almost extrorsely) dehiscent. Rudiment of an ovary generally absent. ♀ Flowers: Ovary thick-cylindric to obconical, blunt, crowned by a large sessile discoid stigma. Drupe elongate-ovoid, crowned by the large stigma, on short pedicel; exocarp thin-fleshy, red-orange to finally purplish blackish; endocarp woody, thin, with 1 or 2 slight longitudinal grooves, reticulately wrinkled; embryo small, in the apex of the albumen.
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Trees. Young branches, young leaves, and inflorescences with rust-colored stellate scales or simple hairs. Leaf blade leathery, with palmate veins, margin entire. Plants polygamous or dioecious; staminate flowers in axillary interrupted spikes, or in panicles; pistillate flowers in short, axillary racemes. Sepals 5, free or united at base, imbricate. Petals 5, connate at base into a very short tube, apex free, valvate, in pistillate flowers early deciduous or absent. Stamens 5, inserted at corolla base, alternate with corolla lobes; filaments shorter than anthers; anthers retrorse. Ovary (in staminate flowers reduced or absent) globose to terete; stigma broadly discoid. Drupe terete; exocarp blue-black, thin; endocarp woody, with reticulate ribs.
Mainly rain-forest, from the lowland up to c. 2200 m (on Mt Kinabalu up to 2895 m?), often on wet soil, scattered. Fl. fr. Jan.-Dec.
Uses. The wood is whitish cream, available in big dimensions due to the large size of the trees, but soft and suitable only for inside house constructions.
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