Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Deciduous or semievergreen trees.

Stems: Bark thick, fibrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (pinnate ± with a terminal leaflet). Alternate. Surfaces leaflets glabrous or with simple hairs. Margins entire, serrate, or dentate. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in many-branched thyrses. Flowers unisexual (with well–developed rudiments of the opposite sex present). Calyx (4)5-lobed, sometimes divided to base. Corolla of 5 petals, distinct, longer than the calyx in bud, imbricate, adnate at base to a short androgynophore. Stamens 5, distinct, arising from the androgynophore; anthers of staminate flowers yellow, dehiscent, those of the pistillate flowers brown and shriveled, not producing pollen, sometimes 1–5 filiform staminodes present. Ovary superior, 5-celled; ovules 6–10 per cell, in staminate flowers ovary more slender, cells well–developed and style longer; style short, discoid.

Fruit: Fruit a pendulous; membranous or thinly woody; ellipsoid to obovoid; septicidal capsules; opening by 5 valves; the columella 5–angled. Seeds winged at both ends or sometimes with a single wing.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: