Alangium

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Alangium

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Cornales
Family: Cornaceae (Alangiaceae)
Genus: Alangium
Lam.
Species

See text
Alangium salviifolium.
Alangium salviifolium.

Alangium is a small genus of flowering plants. The genus is treated either in a broad view of the dogwood family Cornaceae, or as the sole member of its own family Alangiaceae. Differences from the other genera in Cornaceae include articulated pedicels, subulate bracts, bitegmic seeds and the single-seeded fruit.

The genus consists of 17 species of small trees, shrubs and lianas, and is native to western Africa, Madagascar, southern and eastern Asia (China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines), tropical Australia, the western Pacific Ocean islands, and New Caledonia.

The entire or lobed leaves are alternate. The bisexual (rarely unisexual) nectiferous flowers are arranged in axillary cymes. The flowers have 4-10 small sepals and 4-10 linear petals. There are 4-40 stamens distributed in a single cycle. The ovary is bilocular (sometimes unilocular), while the fruit is drupe.

Selected species
  • Alangium alpinum (C.B.Clarke) W.W.Sm. & Cave
  • Alangium barbatum (R. Br.) Baill.
  • Alangium chinense (Lour.) Harms
  • Alangium faberi Oliv.
  • Alangium grisolleoides Capuron
  • Alangium javanicum (Blume) Wangerin
  • Alangium kurzii Craib
  • Alangium kwangsiense Melch.
  • Alangium longiflorum Merr.
  • Alangium platanifolium (Siebold & Zucc.) Harms
  • Alangium salviifolium (L.f.) Wangerin
  • Alangium villosum (Blume) Wangerin
  • Alangium vitiense (A.Gray) Baill. ex Harms
  • Alangium yunnanense C.Y.Wu

Alangium species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species in the Geometroidea-Drepanoidea assemblage including the The Engrailed (Geometridae) and the subfamily Cyclidiinae (Drepanidae).

[edit] Uses

One species, Alangium chinense (Chinese: 八角枫; pinyin: bā jiǎo fēng), is considered one of the fifty fundamental herbs in traditional Chinese medicine.

[edit] References