Description:

• Trees
• Leaves paripinnate, rarely simple; leaflets in 2-5 pairs, alternate or opposite, lanceolate to obliquely oblong-falcate, usually entire
• Flowers small; in terminal panicles
• Sepals 5, suborbicular, imbricate, outer smaller than inner
• Petals (4)5, usually with a hairy scale on inner face, ciliate
• Disc fleshy, expanded at base with margin slightly notched
• Stamens 8, arising within disc; filaments hairy
• Ovary 3-locular, 3-lobed, each lobe narrowly winged; with a single ovule in each locule; style short; stigma simple
• Fruit of 2 or 3 winged cocci, with wings distinctly veined
• Seeds ellipsoid with papery testa
• x = 10 or 15

Nomenclature:

• Atalaya Blume
  • Blume: 186 (1847)
  • Dyer: 214 (1937)
  • Dyer: 112 (1943)
  • Exell: 518 (1966)
• Diacarpa Sim
  • Sim: 33, t. 5 (1909)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 8 or 9, Australia to Indochina and southern Africa; also in Mozambique
• Southern Africa: Species 3, comparatively rare; 2 mainly in Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, the third, rare, in Eastern Cape near Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage