Stems solitary or clustered and then with few shoots, to 30 m tall, to 50 cm in diam., rough with persistent, diamond-shaped leaf bases. Leaves 3-5 m; sheath and petiole to 1 m; rachis 1-2 m; acanthophylls many per side of rachis; pinnae to 200 per side of rachis, linear, irregularly arranged and spreading in different planes; middle pinnae to 40 × 2 cm. Male inflorescences erect, to 1 m, with many rachillae, these ca. 30 cm; female inflorescences erect, becoming pendulous, to 2 m, with to 150 rachillae, these to 40 cm. Fruits variable in shape, usually oblong, to 7 × 3 cm, brown or black; endosperm homogeneous.

Cultivated. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan [widely cultivated throughout N Africa, SW Asia, and parts of S Asia].