Perennial herb with white, starchy, poisonous buried tubers resembling potatoes; leaves radical, annual, palmately 3-parted, each division in turn deeply lobed and divided into acuminate lobes and teeth; petioles 60 cm or more in length; scape 1-2m tall, pale, hollow; flowers in a bracted umbel, the bracts mostly filiform and threadlike; flowers 10-40, pendent, greenish perianth about 15 mm long; berry 20-25 mm diam., globose, ripening to yellow; stamens 6. Tubers edible when prepared by grating and washing, furnishing a fine starch (Polynesian arrowroot).

Native (or perhaps early naturalized) in Guam; found near the sea from Tropical Africa and southern Asia to Australia, Philippines, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The plants are often used as a crop (especially in emergencies). Yona, Marine beach, on limestone boulders, (4420). Agat hills (obs.). MacGregor 514.