Alectryon (plant)

Alectryon
Tītoki Alectryon excelsus (type species) fruiting, New Zealand
Alectryon tomentosus fruiting, Queensland, Australia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Sapindales
Family: Sapindaceae
Tribe: Cupanieae
Genus: Alectryon
Gaertn.[1][2]
Type species
Alectryon excelsus
Gaertn[1][2][3]
Species

See text

Synonyms[2]
  • Heterodendrum Desf.
  • Spanoghea Blume

Alectryon is a genus of about 30 species of trees and shrubs from the family Sapindaceae. They grow naturally across Australasia, Papuasia, Melanesia, western Polynesia, east Malesia and Southeast Asia, including across mainland Australia, especially diverse in eastern Queensland and New South Wales, the Torres Strait Islands, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii, Indonesia and the Philippines.[4][5][6][7] They grow in a wide variety of natural habitats, from rainforests, gallery forests and coastal forests to arid savannas and heaths.

Mainland Australia, especially the eastern Queensland and New South Wales rainforests and the monsoon tropics, harbours the global centre of Alectryon species diversity, having 15 species, 12 of them endemic to Australia.[2][6] In the continent of, combined New Guinea including Papua New Guinea and West Papua, Australia and all of their continental islands, including the Torres Strait Islands, known collectively in biogeography as the Sahul continent, lives the even greater diversity and endemism of 21 and 19 species, respectively.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Gaertner-1788 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference APNI was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fl.-New-Zealand-2010 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Morat-et-al.-New-Caledonia-Florical was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Census-PNG was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Edwards-Gadek-2001 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fl.-Malesiana-1994 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).