Description: Trees, monoecious or dioecious; branches with lenticels, hairs simple.
Leaves alternate, paripinnate; leaflets mostly ± opposite or alternate, margins entire to toothed.
Inflorescences axillary, racemose or paniculate, flowers in small cymes, clustered or pedicellate. Calyx lobes 5, 2-seriate, outer lobes smaller, imbricate. Petals 5, sessile; scales 2, crestless. Disc annular, crenate. Stamens 6–10; filaments filiform; anthers glabrous. Ovary usally 3-locular; 1 ovule per loculus; style short, persistent.
Fruit a capsule, usually shortly stalked, obovoid to subglobose, 3-lobed, 3-locular, usually apiculate, loculicidally dehiscent; valves slightly fleshy; aril cupular, usually almost enclosing seed.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 66 species, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Fiji, Australia. Australia: 11 species (endemic), Qld, N.S.W., N.T., W.A.
Text by G.J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaflets entire, glabrous or almost so | 2 |
| Leaflets toothed, glabrous or hairy | 3 |
| 2 | Leaflets with secondary veins more than 5 mm apart; leaflets and panicles usually more than 7 cm long | Cupaniopsis anacardioides |
| Leaflets with secondary veins less than 5 mm apart; leaflets and panicles usually less than 7 cm long
Back to 1 | Cupaniopsis parvifolia |
| 3 | Domatia present, usually conspicuous, glabrous; leaflets glabrous | Cupaniopsis baileyana |
| Domatia absent or if present inconspicuous and hairy; leaflets glabrous or hairy on lower surface
Back to 1 | 4 |
| 4 | Leaves usually with 6–10 leaflets, apex long-acuminate; inflorescences less than 10 long, rarely branched | Cupaniopsis serrata |
| Leaves with 12–24 (rarely 10) leaflets, apex short-acuminate to obtuse; inflorescences more than 10 cm long, branched
Back to 3 | 5 |
| 5 | Petioles mostly 8–16 cm long; leaflets usually 8–12 pairs, apex short-acuminate; panicles to 21 cm long; panicles to 21 cm long, the branches short and spreading or long and pendent; small unbranched tree | Cupaniopsis newmanii |
| Petioles usually 3.5–9 cm long; leaflets usually 5–7 pairs, apex acute to obtuse; panicles to 55 cm long, the branches usually long, pendent; tree with spreading crown
Back to 4 | Cupaniopsis flagelliformis |
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