Atalaya
Content
Description
Small trees or shrubs, monoecious.
Leaves paripinnate (towards the inflorescence sometimes ternate to 1-foliolate), up to 5-jugate;
Inflorescences terminal and sometimes in the upper leaf-axils, paniculate.
Flowers regular or nearly so.
Sepals 5, free, imbricate, margin in Malesian species petaloid, outer 2 smaller.
Petals 5 (in one Australian species 4), imbricate, (sub)equal, slightly longer than the calyx, clawed, outside variably pilose, inside above the claw provided with a small, long-hairy scale.
Stamens 8, free, all about equal, not exserted;
Ovary triangular, 3-celled;
Ovules 1 per cell, anatropous, apotropous, angular, attached about halfway the cell, sessile on a protuberance of the placenta.
Fruits like 3-winged Acer-fruits (often, however, 1 or 2 cells abortive), breaking up to samarae with a dorsal, straight to curved, oblique wing, glabrous or tomentose.
Seeds without aril, rootlet in a pocket.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Lesser Sunda Is. present, N and E Australia present, S Africa present, SE New Guinea present
12 species: 9 in N and E Australia, of which one also in the Lesser Sunda Islands; 1 in SE New Guinea; 2 species in S Africa.