Dead man's fingers are deciduous shrubs or small trees growing to 5 to 8 m tall with trunks up to 20 cm in diameter. The leaves are pinnate, 60 to 90 cm long, with up to 25 leaflets each up to 15 cm long and 10 cm broad. Each flower is 3 to 6 cm wide with greenish-yellow sepals and no petals. The fruit is a soft greenish-yellow to blue-black pod-like follicle up to 10 cm long and 3 cm diameter. It contains a transparent, glutinous, jelly-like pulp containing numerous (Usually around 40) flat black seeds about 1 cm wide. It is native to eastern Asia, from China west to Nepal and south to Myanmar. The genus consists of one or two species, depending on taxonomic opinion.