Alangium

  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.

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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 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).

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.

References

• Germplasm Resources Information Network: Alangium
• Alangium Lam.. Australian Plant Name Index (APNI), IBIS database. Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, Australian Government.
• Flora of Pakistan: Alangium
• Flora of Madagascar: Alangium
• Flora of China checklist: Alangium