''Airyantha'' is a small genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s in the legume family,

Fabaceae Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

. It belongs to the subfamily

Faboideae The Faboideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. An acceptable alternative name for the subfamily is Papilionoideae, or Papilionaceae when this group of plants is treated as a family. This subfamily is widely ...

. It was named after the botanist

Herbert Kenneth Airy Shaw Herbert Kenneth Airy Shaw (7 April 1902 – 19 August 1985) was a notable English botanist and classicist. He worked at Kew Gardens, as was an expert on tropical Asian botany and on entomology. The genus '' Airyantha'' is named for him. Life A ...

. It was traditionally assigned to the tribe

Sophoreae The tribe (biology), tribe Sophoreae is one of the subdivisions of the plant family (biology), family Fabaceae. Traditionally this tribe has been used as a wastebasket taxon to accommodate genera of Faboideae which exhibit actinomorphic, rather t ...

; however, recent

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

analyses reassigned ''Airyantha'' into the

Baphieae The tribe Baphieae is one of the subdivisions of the plant family Fabaceae. The Baphieae tribe arose 55.3 ± 0.4 million years ago (in the early Eocene). Genera The Baphieae tribe has been circumscribed to include the following genera, whi ...

tribe. The genus contains two accepted species: * '' Airyantha borneensis'' (Oliv.) Brummitt – Borneo and Philippines * '' Airyantha schweinfurthii'' (Taub.) Brummitt – western and west-central tropical Africa, from Côte d'Ivoire to Democratic Republic of the Congo.

References

Baphieae Fabaceae genera Paleotropical flora {{Faboideae-stub