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Alangium
 

Alangium is a small genus of dicotyledon trees in the Dogwood family Cornaceae. It was earlier, in the Cronquist system of 1981, categorized as a member of the family Alangiaceae). However, there is a new tendency to place it back in the family Alangiaceae, because of its differences with the family Cornaceae: articulated pedicels, subulate bracts, bitegmic seeds and 1-seeded fruit.

The genus consists of small trees (sometimes shrubs or lianas) and occurs in Western Africa, Madagascar, Southern Asia (Malaysia, Java, Sulawesi, Borneo, and the Philippines), tropical Australia, and the Pacific Islands (New Caledonia).

The entire or lobed leaves are alternate. The bisexual (rarely unisexual) nectiferous flowers are arranged in axillary cymes. The flowers have 4 to 10 small sepals and 4 to 10 linear petals. There are 4 to 40 stamens distributed in a single cycle. The ovary is 2-locular (sometimes 1-locular), while the fruit is drupe.

One species, Alangium chinense (Chinese: 八角枫; pinyin: bā jiǎo fēng), is considered one of the fifty fundamental herbs in traditional Chinese medicine.

Alangium species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including The Engrailed.

Species

Cornales

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Alangium".

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