Trees or shrubs, dioecious; twigs somewhat hollow. Leaves alternate, usually broad and
often large, peltate or not, entire or sometimes 3 (- 5)-lobed, glandular beneath, 3 - 5-plinerved at
base, sometimes with basal glands above, often gland-dotted beneath; petioles often long;
stipules small and narrowly triangular, to very large and ovate to rounded. Flowers in axillary or
terminal racemes or panicles, apetalous; bracts large, sometimes fimbriate or often patelliformglandular.
Male flowers: clustered along rachis or branches of inflorescences, sessile or very shortly pedicelled, with a large, entire, toothed or fringed bract under each cluster; calyx closed
in bud, opening into 3 or 4 valvate segments; stamens 1 - 30; filaments free; anthers 3 or 4-
locular, almost peltately dorsifixed; connectives incomplete, shorter than thecae; disc rarely
present; pistillode absent. Female flowers solitary, few or several in a cluster at each node;
bracts often fringed or ciliate; calyx closed in bud, opening obliquely, truncate or shortly
toothed; ovary 1 - 6-loculed; ovule solitary in each locule; styles 2 or 3, entire, linear-subulate,
shortly united at base, unlobed. Fruits capsular or leathery to berry-like capsules, 2-valved with
naked or armed cocci, often glandular or with a waxy coat, often muricate or tuberculate,
loculicidally dehiscing into bivalved parts; seeds globose, ecarunculate; testa crustaceous or
osseous; endosperm fleshy; cotyledons broad and flat.
Paleotropical, ca 289 species; 9 species in India.
Literature.
WHITMORE, T. C. (1978). Studies in Macaranga VII. The genus in “Greater India”.
Gard. Bull. Singapore 31: 51 – 56.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Leaves nearly lanceolate, penninerved
2
b. Leaves broadly ovate, rhombate or orbicular, palmately nerved
4
2a. Male flowers clustered on elongate pendulous simple spikes
