Description: Trees, hairy or glabrous, monoecious.
Leaves alternate, simple or paripinnate with leaflets mostly opposite, smallest ones often towards base of leaves; laminas with margins entire or toothed.
Inflorescences in upper axils, mostly racemose or paniculate. Flowers unisexual. Calyx tube shallow, usually 4–6-lobed. Petals absent, or 4 or 5, shortly clawed, scales crestless. Disc complete. Stamens 5–10; filaments shorter than anthers. Ovary 2–4-locular; 1 ovule per loculus.
Fruit usually 1–4-lobed, lobes mostly globose or sometimes compressed, 1-seeded; pericarp thin and drying ± crustaceous, splitting irregularly; seeds ± globose; aril cupular, granular or occasionally smooth.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 34 species, Hawaiian Is, Philipp., Indon., N.C., New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia. Australia: 13 species (12 species endemic), Qld, N.S.W., W.A. [includes Heterodendrum]
Text by G.J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves simple | 2 |
| Leaves compound, paripinnate with 2 or more leaflets | 3 |
| 2 | Leaves usually more than 8 times as long as wide, margins always entire | Alectryon oleifolius |
| Leaves usually less than 8 times as long as wide, at least some leaves with margins irregularly toothed
Back to 1 | Alectryon diversifolius |
| 3 | Leaflets entire | 4 |
| Leaflets toothed
Back to 1 | 6 |
| 4 | Leaves with usually 2 or rarely 4 or 6 leaflets, discolorous with lower surface pale grey-green | 5 |
| Leaves usually 4–6 or sometimes 2 leaflets, both surfaces more or less dark green
Back to 3 | Alectryon subcinereus |
| 5 | Apex of leaflets obtuse; confined to rainforest and scrub near the sea | Alectryon coriaceus |
| Apex of leaflets shortly acuminate; in dry rainforest and scrub in the escarpment gorges and Western Slopes
Back to 4 | Alectryon forsythii |
| 6 | Leaves, branchlets and fruit glabrous or finely pubescent; leaflets 2–6; fruit usually 2-lobed | 7 |
| Leaves, branchlets and fruit rusty-tomentose; leaflets 4–8; fruit usually 3-lobed
Back to 3 | Alectryon tomentosus |
| 7 | Leaflets usually more than 2 times as long as wide; lobes of fruit globose, glabrous; apex of leaflets mostly acuminate | Alectryon subcinereus |
| Leaflets less than 2 times as long as wide; lobes of fruit more or less compressed at margins, hairy; apex of leaflets obtuse to more or less acute
Back to 6 | Alectryon subdentatus |
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