Plants slender to robust, soliary palms, individual usually bisexual, rarely unisexual; trunks unbranched, erect. Leaves palmate or costapalmate; petioles unarmed or armed with spines; blades divided to varying depths into single-fold, induplicate segments, filaments sometimes present in the sunses. Inforescences pedunculate, branched in up to 5 orders. Flowers usually cream-colored, tepals united, in 2 whorls of 3; stamens 6, inserted on the inner tepals, the filaments united, forming a fleshy ring; anthers medifixed; ovaries of 3 free carpels unied by their styles to form an apical stigma; ovules basal. Fruits usually developing from 1 carpel, stigmatic remainsapical, epicarp smooth, mesocarp thin or thick, usually easily separated from the stony endocarp.
Livistona includes about 28 species, Livistona carinensis in the Horn of Africa and the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, the others in southeastern Asia and Australia.