Single-stemmed, up to 10 m tall, trunks usually pale gray, straight, slender, with conspicuous well-spaced even paler grayish-white rings; leaves with short petioles, dark green, with about 12 pairs of segments; sheath about 60 cm long, green; segments plicate at the base, blunt and somewhat toothed at the tip, up to nearly 50 cm long and 6 cm wide; inflorescence axis to 30 cm long, with main branches as long; staminate flowers 5 mm long; pistillate flowers 1.5-2 cm long, basal; fruit ovoid-oblong, about 4 cm long and slightly more than half as thick, usually red or orange when mature. Introduced from Indo-Malaysia probably by the original settlers of Guam; now widespread in cultivation and naturalized. In all villages, and very abundant in southern Guam in valleys of volcanic hills. Mangilao (4165); Barrigada (4894). The fruit, fresh or dried, is chewed as an astringent and stimulant, often together with a leaf of the betel-pepper (Piper betle) and a pinch of lime; this causes the saliva to turn red.