It is endemic to Madagascar, where it is extinct in the wild, but preserved by indigenous horticulture practices.

[2] The plant originally was thought to grow along the west coast of Madagascar, but ethnobotany data suggest it in fact grew in the island's extreme southwest.

The plant's water-storing trunk grows up to 20 m. Its leaves are pinnate, compound, and can reach 1 m long.

The leaf rachis and stem tips of young plants are distinctively deep red.

Fruits are up to 50 cm long and contain 6 to 12 large nut-shaped seeds in a hard, light brown shell.