Rhytis Loureiro; Stilago Linnaeus.

Trees or erect shrubs, dioecious; indumentum of simple hairs. Leaves alternate, eglandular; stipules small; petiole usually short; leaf blade simple, margin entire, venation pinnate. Inflorescences axillary, sometimes apparently terminal, or cauline, spikes or racemes, sometimes much branched. Male flowers: calyx 3-5(-8)-lobed, cup-shaped, lobes imbricate; petals absent; disk extrastaminal, annular or cushion-shaped (enclosing bases of stamens and pistillode), or consisting of free lobes; stamens (1-)3-5(-7), inserted inside/within disk or sinus of disk lobes, incurved in bud, afterward straight; filaments longer than sepals; anthers 2-locular, connectives U-shaped; thecae separate from each other, resembling swollen ends of U, raised at anthesis, dehiscing longitudinally; pistillode usually present. Female flowers: sepals as in male; disk annular surrounding ovary, entire; ovary longer than sepals, usually 1-locular; ovules 2 per locule, pendent; styles 2-4, short, terminal to lateral, apex usually bifid. Fruit a drupe, ovoid, ellipsoid, or lens-shaped, with many areoles when dry, crowned with persistent styles, usually 1-seeded. Seeds small, endosperm fleshy, cotyledon flattened and broad. x = 13.

Material of species no. 11, Antidesma hontaushanense, described from Taiwan (Lan Yu), has not been seen and the available description is too poor to include this taxon within the key to species.

About 100 species: mainly the tropics and subtropics of Asia but also in Africa (8 species), the Pacific islands (5-8 species), and Australia (5-7 species); 11 species (two endemic) in China.

(Authors: Li Bingtao (李秉滔 Li Ping-tao); Petra Hoffmann)