Australia and some South Pacific islands to SE Asia. Also naturalized to some extent in the Bahamas and California, where it was introduced. As source of furniture wood and as an ornamental. Fossil pollen in the Paleocene and macrofossils in the Eocene and Miocene. Unisexual and monoecious, perianth lacking.
Male flowers are in whorls at nodes or in aments at the ends of lateral branches.
Female flowers in a dense head. Both subtended by bracts or bracteoles, the bract of the female flower becoming woody. Seeds with endosperm lacking. Leaves are evergreen and reduced to scale-like structures that are whorled at the nodes.