Description from Flora of China Trees or shrubs evergreen,
dioecious, mostly palmlike; trunk columnar, sometimes
dichotomously branched at apex, rarely ovoid-bulbous and
subterranean, clothed with bases of fallen leaves; bark often
thickened and roughened. Leaves borne at apex of trunk,
1(-3)-pinnately compound, spirally arranged; new leaves erect
(or somewhat inflexed and appearing coiled in C. multipinnata
group), with circinnate leaflets; petiole with spines
representing (reduced basal leaflets), rarely unarmed, base
swollen and hairy; leaflets numerous, alternate to subopposite,
dichotomously branched in a few species, midvein present, margin
usually entire. Cataphylls prominent, alternate with leaves,
hairy, apex often rigid and pungent. Pollen cones borne at apex
of trunk, cylindric or fusiform; microsporophylls numerous,
scalelike, spirally and tightly arranged along axis of cone,
with numerous microsporangia in groups abaxially; pollen tubes
producing 2 motile sperm cells. Megasporophylls several to n