While the simplest floral characteristics belong to those rattan genera endemic to Africa (Laccosperma, Eremospatha and Oncocalamus), they exhibit tremendous diversity suggesting a larger representation in the past.

[2][page needed] This subfamily has been noted in palm literature as the Lepidocaryoideae, however an 1844 (Griffith) designation of Calamoideae predates the use of the former at this rank and, as such, is correct in botanical nomenclature.

Many of the rattans in the subfamily are slender, high-climbing vines creeping from the jungle floor aided by evolved hooks and barbs, allowing them to cling onto competitive vegetation to reach the canopy top.

[citation needed] Sexually they show hermaphroditic, monoecious, dioecious and polygamous characteristics of which some are hapaxanthic, dying after they flower and fruit, while the remainder follow the more common pleonanthic reproductive behavior.

[3][page needed] In any case, it is joined by the strictly New World genera Mauritia, Mauritiella, and Lepidocaryum in Trinidad, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana and Suriname.

Onto Sri Lanka, India, China, the Fiji and Indonesian island chains and Australia, members of this subfamily are widely dispersed across East and West Asia and the southern Pacific.

Obsolete genera (all species are now included within the genus Calamus):[4] A tribe with 3 subtribes from Africa, North and Central America with moderately sized, erect trunks, with crownshafts.