PLANT: Trees unarmed, polygamodioecious; bark gray.

LEAVES: large, deciduous, odd-pinnately compound, malodorous when bruised.

INFLORESCENCE: a large terminal panicle.

FLOWERS: malodorous (especially the staminate ones); calyx lobes 5-6; petals 5-6; stamens 10-12 (staminate flowers) or 2-3 (perfect flowers); ovary 2-5-lobed.

FRUITS: samaras, 1-5 per flower, each developing from a carpel, more or less pendulous.

NOTES: Ca. 15 spp.; e Asia, ne Australia. (Supposed oriental [Moluccan] name meaning tree of heaven.)

REFERENCES: Brasher, Jeffrey W. 1999. Simaroubaceae. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 32(1).

Incompletely dioecious; fls 5-merous; stamens 10 (fewer or none on fls of female trees); carpels 2-5, united at the axis only, each with a single ovule, maturing into separate samaras with the seed near the center; trees with pinnately compound lvs and malodorous fls in large terminal panicles. 10, Old World.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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