Ptychosperma Labill.

Solitary or clustering, moderate palms. Stems erect, smooth, with annular leaf scars. Leaves paripinnate, caducous; leaf sheaths tubular, forming a crownshaft. Pinnae reduplicate, linearacute to broadly cuneate, in a single plane, apically truncate and praemorse, green on both surfaces; midrib prominent. Inflorescence infrafoliar, paniculate, branched to 2–6 orders; peduncle short to elongate; prophyll dorsiventrally flattened, laterally keeled; peduncular bract tubular; rameal bracts absent or few; rachis short or elongate; branches subtended by short or long bracts. Flowers spirally arranged, with triads in proximal portion, staminate flowers in distal portion. Staminate flowers symmetric, bullet-shaped; petals hard; stamens 12–40 or 9–100+ (not in Australia); anthers basally sagittate, dorsifixed; filament long; pistillode bottle-shaped, longer than stamens. Pistillate flowers conic-ovoid. Fruit globose to ellipsoid, orange, red or purple-black (not in Australia); stigmatic remains apical; epicarp smooth; mesocarp fleshy, mucilaginous with irritant crystals; endocarp fibrous, 5-lobed. Seed 5-lobed; hilum lateral; endosperm homogeneous or ruminate; embryo basal. Eophyll bifid.