Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Dioecious trees.

Stems: Sap milky, trunk and branches stout, hollow, septate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades usually palmately lobed, ± peltate. Long-petiolate. Stipules amplexicaul, leaving a scar completely surrounding the stem.

Flowers: Flowers in palmately arranged spikes, the axis often fleshy, subtended by a large bract (spathe). Flowers unisexual. Calyx of 2–4 sepals; staminate flowers with calyx tubular, entire or 2-lobed; pistillate flowers with calyx tubular, apex pore-like. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens in staminate flowers 2; filaments straight in bud. Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), 1-carpellate; ovule 1, placentation basal; style 1, short; stigma 1, exserted. Staminate flower ovary absent.

Fruit: Fruit oblong; enclosed by the thin calyx. Seeds 1 per achene; without endosperm.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: