Plants of the World Online (Kew) accepts 24 species.
They are native from New Guinea east to the Solomon Islands and down to eastern Queensland.
The erect solitary or clustering palms are up to 20 m high.
Stems, with no spines are under 20 cm across.
The ring scars can be faint to prominent.
There are up to around 10 erect to slightly arching pinnate leaves.
Their petiole, up to 60 cm long is covered in brown scales.
It is grooved on the upper surface and rounded underneath.
Leaf sheaths form a prominent green crown shaft up to 60 or 70 cm long and covered in scales.
Leaves, up to 3 m long have a midrib similar to the petiole.
Each side of the midrib has up to 50 leaflets up to nearly 80 cm long and 6 cm wide.
The linear to wedge shaped leaflets lie in 1 plane.
They can be evenly spaced or grouped and the edges are folded down (reduplicate).
The flat, oblique or concave tips are jagged and notched.
The midrib and thickened edges are prominent.
There may be large stalked scales (rameta) on the lower midribs.
Axillary inflorescences, up to nearly 1 m long are below the crown shaft.
The angled peduncle, under 10 cm long may have scales.
The tubular prophyll splits between the 2 keels and falls off early.
The 1 or more similar peduncular bracts are covered by the prophyll.
The panicles have 2 to 4 (6) orders of branches that spread widely.
The midrib (rachis) has small bracts at the base of the straight or curved branches (rachillae).
Along the rachillae are spirally arranged flowers with bracteoles at the base.
Most flowers are in groups of 3 with a central female between the 2 males.
At the tips of the rachillae are just male flowers.
The directly attached flowers are not sunken into pits.
All flowers have 3 free sepals with pointed tips with tiny hairs on the edges.
The 3 free green to white ovate petals are thick and fibrous.
Male flowers have a few to over 100 stamens with short filaments.
Dorsifixed anthers, opening sideways may have appendages at both ends.
There is a small pistillode.
Female flowers have tiny scale-like staminodes around the ovary.
The ovary has 1 (2, 3) locule with a single ovule.
There is no obvious style and the 3 stigmas bend back when mature.
Fruit are a spherical to ovoid drupe around 1.5 cm long and 1 cm wide.
The sepals, petals and stigmas remain attached.
The smooth skin can be orange, red or a purplish-black.
There is a fleshy layer and bundles of fibres around the tough seed.
The typically single ovoid seed has longitudinal grooves.
J.F.
