Description: Trees; buds and young stems pubescent with brownish or rusty hairs, young stems often longitudinally ribbed.
Leaves alternate, 2-ranked, dark green and glabrous above, whitish and finely tomentose below, strongly pinnately veined; stipules small, not persistent.
Flowers whitish, small, in terminal or axillary cymes. Hypanthium covered by the disc. Sepals 5, spreading. Petals 5, enclosing the 5 stamens. Ovary immersed in the disc, usually 2-locular.
Fruit drupaceous, black, with a transverse ridge above the base, finally drying; seeds arillate, 2 or 3, often remaining attached to the receptacle after fruit splits.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 20 species, Malesia, Polynesia, Australia. Australia: c. 6 species (4 species endemic), Qld, N.S.W., N.T., W.A., chiefly tropical
Text by G. J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Fruit ovoid to globose, 5–10 mm diam.; buds and young stems grey to golden-brown hairy; branchlets not usually ribbed; stipules 2–10 mm long | Alphitonia excelsa |
| Fruit depressed-globose, 10–15 mm diam.; buds and young shoots reddish brown hairy; branchlets prominently ribbed; stipules 1–2 mm long | Alphitonia petriei |
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