Perennial herbs with branched, often ± woody rhizomes or rootstocks. Leaves decussate, broadly ovate to lanceolate, distinctly petiolate, with stipular sheaths bearing 3–5(7) setae on either side. Inflorescence terminal, paniculate to thyrso-paniculate, bracteate. Flowers hermaphrodite, female or male, 4(5)-merous. Calyx obsolete. Hermaphrodite, male: Corolla: tube (very) short, broadly funnel-shaped to campanulate, lobes recurved, ± lanceolate; anthers yellowish to whitish, exserted, dangling on long slender filiform filaments. Female: corolla much smaller, tube cylindrical, sometimes 0, lobes erect to spreading, ± linear. Ovary bicarpellate and biovulate; style 0; stigmas 2, long exserted, in hermaphrodite often shorter and thinner than in female, hairy, greyish-white, yellowish-grey or greenish. Fruit dehiscent, not supported by a carpophore; mericarps ± glabrous, tuberculate or covered with long hairs, dorsal side convex, ventral side plane to concave.