A rhizomatous herb, usually with calcium oxalate crystals or raphides and commonly with milky sap. The leaves are alternate, simple or compound, petiolate, sometimes very large, and usually with a sheathing base. The inflorescence is a fleshy spike or spadix subtended or commonly partially enveloped by a bract or spathe which is sometimes petaloid or brightly colored. The tiny flowers are actinomorphic, bisexual or unisexual, and are sessile or sometimes embedded in the floral axis. The perianth is nearly always absent in unisexual flowers but in bisexual flowers typically consists of 4-6 small, undifferentiated tepals that are free or connate. The androecium of a typical male flower usually consists of 2, 4, or 8 distinct or variously connate stamens that are opposite the tepals when these are present. The gynoecium of a typical female flower consists of a single compound pistil of mostly 3 but up to 15 carpels, a single style, and a superior ovary with sometimes one locule and 1-numerous parietal ovules or more frequently 3 or more locules, each with 1-numerous axile-apical to axile-basal ovules. The fruit is a berry.

The rhizome is used for rheumatic or rheumatoid arthritis with aching and cold sensation of the loins and knees, muscular contracture, and numbness of the lower extremities.

Jing-Nuan Wu. An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. P: 350, Oxford University Press, Inc.2005.