Diplopanax is a genus of flowering

Flowering plant

The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

 tree

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 usually placed in the family Cornaceae

Cornaceae

Cornaceae is a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants in the order Cornales. It contains approximately 110 species, mostly trees and shrubs, which may be deciduous or evergreen. Members of this family usually have opposite or alternate simple leaves, four- or five-parted flowers clustered in...

. Its two known extant species inhabit the wet tropical mountains of Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 and southern China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. They are broad-leaved evergreen trees with woody fruits and white or yellow flowers.

Diplopanax was originally described from only one species, D. stachyanthus, and placed in the family Araliaceae

Araliaceae

Araliaceae is a family of flowering plants, also known as the Aralia family or Ivy family. The family includes 254 species of trees, shrubs, lianas and perennial herbaceous plants into 2 subfamilies...

, but this species was later discovered to be congener

Congener

Congener has several different meanings depending on the field in which it is used. Colloquially, it is used to mean a person or thing like another, in character or action.-Biology:In biology, congeners are organisms within the same genus...

ic with Mastixicarpum, a genus of flowering plants known only from fossils and assumed extinct since the Pliocene

Pliocene

The Pliocene Epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 2.588 million years before present. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch...

. (This makes Mastixicarpum an example of a Lazarus genus

Lazarus taxon

In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon is a taxon that disappears from one or more periods of the fossil record, only to appear again later. The term refers to the account in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead...

.) One additional species (D. vietnamensis) was subsequently found and described.

Classification of Diplopanax is inconsistent due to ongoing investigation into its phylogenetic relationships. Although generally placed in Cornaceae, it has also been included in the family Nyssaceae

Nyssaceae

Nyssaceae is a small family of flowering trees closely related to and often included within the dogwood family . Nyssaceae commonly includes the following genera:...

, when that family is removed from Cornaceae. Diplopanax is also sometimes separated, along with the genus Mastixia, into the family Mastixiaceae.