Each leaf is made of many pairs of leaflets shaped like tail fins that give this palm its name.

[11] Cultivated mainly as an ornament plant in Cambodia, where it is named tunsaé töch, traditional healers burn the heaps of felted hairs from the leaves' axils to treat ill limbs of patients.

[13] Its trunk pith can be extracted to make a kind of flour that has similar properties like sago.

[11] In Cochinchine, Vietnam, this plant were used as a wedding gate in the past before 2000s The fruit of C. mitis is saturated with raphides, sharp, needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate.

The raphides are strong irritants that cause damage and later itching upon contact with skin, and if ingested, the mouth.