Ostodes Blume

Trees or shrubs, dioecious, with simple pubescence on young parts. Leaves alternate, crowded at tips of branches, penninerved or weakly to strongly 3-nerved at base; petioles biglandular at the junction with lamina; stipules caducous. Inflorescences below the terminal tuft of leaves, axillary or extra-axillary; the males pyramidal thyrsoid, many-flowered; the females less branched and fewer flowered, thyrsiform, occasionally tending to be pseudo-racemose; bracts triangular to linear-lanceolate. Male flowers: calyx 3 - 5-partite with imbricate lobes; petals 5 (- 7), free, borne around the disc; disc glands 5 (- 8), free, opposite to sepals; stamens (10 -) 20 - 40, free, interior filaments often shortly connate at base; anthers 2-locular; connectives broad. Female flowers: calyx (3 -) 5 - 7-partite; lobes unequal; petals 5 - 10, free; disc glands connate in a ring, crenate; ovary 3-loculed, each 1-ovuled; styles 3, bifid or quadrifid. Fruits tricoccous; seeds smooth, marbled.

Eastern Himalayas, NE. India, Myanmar, Thailand, S. China, Indo-china and W. Malesia, ca 2 species; one species with one variety in India.

List of Lower Taxa