ABSTRACT
South America. Cyclanthaceae, herbs and hemiepiphytes, vegetatively easy to confuse with palms (Arecaceae). Leaves simple, alternate or clustered, sometimes arising from the soil, petiolate, bifid or multi-lobed, rarely entire. Infructescence consisting of multiple fruits tightly aggregated and surrounded by one or various bracts. Fruit a berry. Seeds many per fruit. Petiole base sheathing the stem. Vegetative branching, stout monomorphic adventitious roots, styloid sacs in roots, leaves scabrous when dry, tightly overlapping leaf sheaths, solitary terminal inflorescences, long narrow moderately flattened seeds, symmetrical staminate flowers, uniseriate staminate perianth, distinct spathe scars, green-light brown fruits, separate fruits, pollen inaperturate, closely related to Evodianthus
