Alectryon Gaertn.

Medium-sized to small trees or shrubs, sometimes monoecious. Indumentum of solitary simple hairs only. Branchlets terete. Leaves paripinnate, 1-8-jugate, unwinged; true stipules absent, lowermost pair of leaflets sometimes stipule-like. Leaflets opposite (or alternate), variably hairy (to glabrous), lower side smooth; base often oblique, then usually in the lower leaflets the acroscopic side and in the upper ones the basiscopic side stronger developed; margin entire or serrate, dentate, or crenate; nerves ending free or the upper ones looped and joined. Inflorescences axillary (or together pseudo-terminal, rarely ramiflorous), a thyrse or panicle (or raceme). Flowers unisexual (or bisexual), actinomorphic. Sepals 4, 5 (or 6), from somewhat less than halfway to nearly completely connate, all equal, hardly or not petaloid, hairy on both sides (or inside glabrous). Petals absent or 4 or 5, about as long as to shorter than the sepals, short-clawed, with 2 scales without a crest, outside glabrous, margin ciliolate, inside hairy or glabrous. Disc uninterrupted, annular or ± lobed, without appendages, glabrous. Stamens (5-)8, exserted in male flowers; filaments hairy to glabrous; anthers basifixed, the base usually deeply cleft, usually glabrous, dehiscence latrorse or latro-introrse. Pistil sessile or short-stalked, densely hairy; ovary (l-)2-4(-5)-locular; style apical, columnar, mostly shorter than the ovary; stigma grooved or with recoiled lobes. Ovules 1 per locale. Fruits sessile or short-stipitate, 1-or more-lobed, capsular, dehiscing either with a loculicidal calyptra or septifragally (along septum), smooth or slightly warty, hairy or finally glabrous, inside glabrous (or hairy). Seeds black, partly covered by a red sarcotesta (see under the subgenera).

Uses Some species are good timber trees.