Tufted to arborescent perennials. Trunk woody, with characteristic secondary thickening, the stout axis continued vertically downwards in an equally stout rhizome (sometimes 2). Leaves crowded in tufts at ends of branched or unbranched stems, long-linear to narrow-elliptic, ± petiolate, with strong fibrous veins. Inflorescence a terminal panicle soon pushed aside by a leafy shoot from axil of adjacent leaf; bracts leaf-like. Flowers bisexual, small, actinomorphic, pedicellate; each pedicel with 2 chaffy bracts; perianth-tube short, becoming ± fleshy; lobes subequal, spreading. Staminal-filaments ± flattened; anthers dorsifixed and versatile. Ovary superior; stigma ± 3-lobed; ovules several to many in each locule. Fruit a globose berry. Seeds usually curved, black. Spp. c. 15, scattered from India to N.Z. and pacific, also recorded in S. America. Native spp. 5, adventive 1.

Fls bisexual, in a terminal panicle which is soon pushed aside by a lfy shoot from the axil of an adjacent lf. Larger bracts foliaceous, us. 2 together, sts exceeding panicle; smaller bracts chaffy, 2 associated with each pedicel and fl. Fls articulate to pedicel, small, actinomorphic. Per.-tube short, becoming ± fleshy as fr. ripens; tepals subequal, patent, marcescent. Staminal filaments ± flattened but not greatly thickened, glab.; anthers dorsifixed and versatile. Ovary superior, sessile, globose; nectaries slit-like, one over upper part of each septum; ovules several to ∞ in each locule; stigma ± 3-lobed. Fr. baccate, becoming dry with age. Seeds us. curved, black. Tufted to arborescent; trunk woody with characteristic secondary thickening, the stout axis continued vertically downwards in an equally stout rhizome (sts 2). Lvs long-lived, crowded in tuffs (to 200 or more) at ends of branches, long-linear to narrow-elliptic, ± petiolate, the strong fibrous veins narrowly oblique to midrib. About 15 spp. scattered from India to Queensland and the Pacific, recorded also in S. America. The 5 N.Z. spp. endemic. : type sp.,