Falconeria Royle

Deciduous trees, monoecious, flowering and fruiting when leafless, with distal whorled branches. Leaves alternate, almost crowded at apex of branches, glandular-serrate along margins, penninerved; petioles with 2 glands at apex below the blade; stipules divided into 2 or 3 glandless ciliae. Inflorescences terminal, on conspicuously thicker branches, up to 17 cm long, with male and female flowers in separate thyrses of equal size. Male flowers: sessile in bud, with up to 1 mm long pedicels when flowering; bracts transversely ovate, rounded at apex, with a pair of oblong-flattened to discoid glands touching the axis of inflorescence; cymules 9 – 15-flowered; bracteoles completely divided into 2 or 3 ciliae; calyx of 2 fused sepals; stamens 2; filaments slightly longer than anthers. Female flowers: 30 – 60 per thyrse; pedicels very short; calyx 3- lobed, glandless; ovary 2- or 3-locular, smooth; style very short with 2 or 3 undivided stigmatic lobes. Fruits fleshy when young, later dry, tardily and irregularly dehiscing, 2- or 3-seeded, smooth; columella winged; seeds with thin fleshy arillus, ecarunculate.

India and Sri Lanka to Vietnam, China, Thailand and Malaysia, monotypic.

List of Lower Taxa