Family: Cyclanthaceae

Habit: Herbs, terrestrial or epiphytic, or sometimes lianas.

Leaves: Leaves simple, alternate, distichous or spiral along stem; petiole sheathing the stem; lamina usually divided, bifid, or plicate, often resembling a palm leaf, rarely entire.

Inflorescence: Inflorescence a spadix subtended by caducous spathes.

Flowers: Flowers unisexual, densely clustered along spadix combined pistillate and staminate groups; staminate flowers with inconspicuous perianth, the stamens 6 to many; pistillate flowers with 4 small, free or connate tepals, each with a filamentous staminode; ovary inferior or only slightly so, the carpels 4, sometimes immersed in the spadix, unilocular, placentation parietal or apical.

Fruit: Fruit a berry, the individual berries fused to some degree to form a multiple fruit.

Seeds: Seeds usually numerous per fruit.