Unbranched, soft wooded tree with succulent trunk and milky sap; petiole long, fistular, swollen at the base; leaves alternate or spirally arranged, forming a crown above, palmately 5-9 lobed, variously divided; flowers slightly fragrant, dioecious, greenish white or creamy yellow; male flowers in long, drooping, lax panicles, pale yellow or white, sessile; calyx small, 5-lobed; corolla campanulate, tube slender, lobes-5, triangular; stamens 10 in two series, inserted on the mouth of corolla, alternate shorter; female flowers larger than males, subsessile, in axillary corymbose racemes or a few clustered on short peduncles, with staminodes; ovary sessile, free, 1 or 5 celled; ovules many, parietal placentas; style short, 3-5 palmately branched; stigma 5-lobed; fruits fleshy, indehiscent, succulent, oblong, yellow to orange when ripe, 1-celled; seeds spherical, black with pulpy juice.