Alectryon (genus)
Encyclopedia
Alectryon is a genus of tree
s in the soapberry
family, Sapindaceae
. The genus is distributed across Australasia
, Micronesia
and Southeast Asia
. The genus is found in a wide variety of environments from rainforest
s and gallery forest
s to arid savanna
s and heath
s.
Species height varies form low shrubs to trees of 30 m. Their leathery leaves
may be simple or pinnate
foliage. Small flower
s, usually formed at the end of the stem, are followed by fruit which split when ripe to reveal a large seed with a fleshy aril
. These juicy appendages attract birds and other seed dispersing animals.
The name Alectryon is derived from Greek
word for "rooster". This refers to the cockscomb appearance of aril on the fruit. See also: Alectryon (mythology)
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s in the soapberry
Sapindus
Sapindus is a genus of about five to twelve species of shrubs and small trees in the Lychee family, Sapindaceae, native to warm temperate to tropical regions in both the Old World and New World. The genus includes both deciduous and evergreen species. Members of the genus are commonly known as...
family, Sapindaceae
Sapindaceae
Sapindaceae, also known as the soapberry family, is a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales. There are about 140-150 genera with 1400-2000 species, including maple, horse chestnut and lychee....
. The genus is distributed across Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
, Micronesia
Micronesia
Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....
and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
. The genus is found in a wide variety of environments from rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
s and gallery forest
Gallery forest
Gallery forests are evergreen forests that form as corridors along rivers or wetlands and project into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands or deserts....
s to arid savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
s and heath
Heath (habitat)
A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...
s.
Species height varies form low shrubs to trees of 30 m. Their leathery leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
may be simple or pinnate
Pinnate
Pinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...
foliage. Small flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s, usually formed at the end of the stem, are followed by fruit which split when ripe to reveal a large seed with a fleshy aril
Aril
An aril is any specialized outgrowth from the funiculus that covers or is attached to the seed. It is sometimes applied to any appendage or thickening of the seed coat in flowering plants, such as the edible parts of the mangosteen and pomegranate fruit, the mace of the nutmeg seed, or the...
. These juicy appendages attract birds and other seed dispersing animals.
The name Alectryon is derived from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word for "rooster". This refers to the cockscomb appearance of aril on the fruit. See also: Alectryon (mythology)
Alectryon (mythology)
Alectryon is the Ancient Greek word for "rooster". In Greek mythology, Alectryon was a youth, charged by Ares to stand guard outside his door while the god indulged in illicit love with Aphrodite. He fell asleep, and Helios, the sun, walked in on the couple. Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster,...
Species
- Alectryon affinis (New GuineaNew GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
) - Alectryon bleeseri (tropical AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
) - Alectryon canescens (Australia)
- Alectryon cardiocarpus (New Guinea)
- Alectryon carinatum (New CaledoniaNew CaledoniaNew Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
) - Alectryon celebicus (SulawesiSulawesiSulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
) - Alectryon coriaceum – Beach Bird's Eye (Australia)
- Alectryon diversifolius – Scrub Boonaree (Australia)
- Alectryon excelsus Gaertn.Joseph GaertnerJoseph Gaertner was a German botanist, best known for his work on seeds, De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum ....
– Tītoki (New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
) - Alectryon excisus (Philippines)
- Alectryon ferrugineum (Maluku IslandsMaluku IslandsThe Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...
) - Alectryon fuscus (Philippines)
- Alectryon glabrum (TimorTimorTimor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...
) - Alectryon grandifolius (FijiFijiFiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
) - Alectryon grandis – Three Kings Tītoki (New Zealand)
- Alectryon inaequilaterus (PhilippinesPhilippinesThe Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
) - Alectryon kangeanensis (Java)
- Alectryon kimberleyanus (West Australia)
- Alectryon laeve (Australia)
- Alectryon macrococcusAlectryon macrococcusAlectryon macrococcus, known as Alaalahua or Māhoe in Hawaiian, is a species of flowering tree in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae, that is endemic to Hawaii. A. macrococcus var. macrococcus inhabits mesic forests at elevations of on Kauai, Oahu, Molokai and western Maui. A. macrococcus var...
Radlk.Ludwig Adolph Timotheus RadlkoferLudwig Adolph Timotheus Radlkofer , was a noted Bavarian taxonomist and botanist, who was Professor of Botany at the University of Munich....
– Alaalahua or Māhoe (HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
)- A. macrococcus var. auwahiensis G.Linney (MauiMauiThe island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...
) - A. macrococcus var. macrococcus Radlk. (KauaiKauaiKauai or Kauai, known as Tauai in the ancient Kaua'i dialect, is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. With an area of , it is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and the 21st largest island in the United States. Known also as the "Garden Isle",...
, OahuOahuOahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
, MolokaiMolokaiMolokai or Molokai is an island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is 38 by 10 miles in size with a land area of , making it the fifth largest of the main Hawaiian Islands and the 27th largest island in the United States. It lies east of Oahu across the 25-mile wide Kaiwi Channel and north of...
, Maui)
- A. macrococcus var. auwahiensis G.Linney (Maui
- Alectryon macrophyllus (New Guinea)
- Alectryon mollis (New Guinea)
- Alectryon myrmecophilus (New Guinea)
- Alectryon ochraceus (Philippines)
- Alectryon oleifolius – Boonaree (Australia)
- Alectryon ramiflorusAlectryon ramiflorusAlectryon ramiflorus is a species of plant in the Sapindaceae family. It is endemic to Australia. It is threatened by habitat loss.-References:* World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998. . Downloaded on 20 August 2007....
S.Reynolds (Queensland, Australia) - Alectryon repandodentatusAlectryon repandodentatusAlectryon repandodentatus is a species of plant in the Sapindaceae family. It is found in Australia and Papua New Guinea.-References:* World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998. . Downloaded on 20 August 2007....
Radlk. (New Guinea) - Alectryon reticulatus (New Guinea)
- Alectryon samoensis (Samoa)
- Alectryon semicinereum (Australia)
- Alectryon serratum (Australia)
- Alectryon sphaerococcum (Sulawesi)
- Alectryon strigosus (New Guinea)
- Alectryon subcinereusAlectryon subcinereusAlectryon subcinereus is a shrub or small tree in the Sapindaceae family. It is endemic to eastern Australia....
– Wild Quince (Australia) - Alectryon subdentatum (Australia)
- Alectryon tomentosusAlectryon tomentosusAlectryon tomentosus, commonly known as the Hairy Birds Eye, Red Jacket or Woolly Rambutan, is a rainforest tree of the Sapindaceae family found in eastern Australia. The specific epithet tomentosus refers to the hairy leaves and hairy young shoots.It grows in many different types of rainforest on...
– Hairy Alectryon, Woolly Rambutan, Hairy Bird's Eye (Australia) - Alectryon unilobatus (Australia)