Trunks usually tall, distinctly ringed below, clothed above with old fibrous leaf-sheaths. Leaves in a terminal crown, fan-shaped, plicate, orbicular, split to middle or below into numerous segments, often bifid at tip, and induplicately inserted on axis (V shaped in T.S.); frequently a small bristle or filament between segments; petiole long, usually spiny on margins. Inflorescence a loose, often much-branched panicle borne amongst leaves on a long peduncle, erect but drooping in fruit; spathes subtending main rhachis and secondary branches tubular, compressed, leathery. Flowers bisexual, greenish, very small. Fruit globose to ellipsoid, reduced by abortion to one carpel; exocarp smooth, mesocarp thin, fleshy, endocarp thin, hard. Spp. c. 30, of tropical Asia and Australia. Adventive sp. 1.