''Aralidium'' is a genus in the plant family

Torricelliaceae The Torricelliaceae are a family of trees native to Madagascar and southwest Asia. It contains three genera, '' Aralidium'', '' Melanophylla'' and '' Torricellia''. Under the APG II system, each of these genera was placed in its own family, but w ...

. It includes the single species ''Aralidium pinnatifidum'', a small tree or shrub distributed in southeastern

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. Taxonomic placement of this genus has proven difficult because it possesses characters in common with both the

Araliaceae The Araliaceae are a family of flowering plants composed of about 43 genera and around 1500 species consisting of primarily woody plants and some herbaceous plants commonly called the ginseng family. The morphology of Araliaceae varies widely ...

and

Cornaceae The Cornaceae are a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants in the order Cornales. The family contains approximately 85 species in two genera, '' Alangium'' and '' Cornus''. They are mostly trees and shrubs, which may be deciduous or evergreen, ...

. In the

Cronquist system The Cronquist system is a list of systems of plant taxonomy, taxonomic classification system of angiosperms, flowering plants. It was developed by Arthur Cronquist in a series of monographs and texts, including ''The Evolution and Classification of ...

, it was placed in Cornaceae, but the

APG II system The APG II system (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II system) of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly Molecular phylogenetics, molecular-based, list of systems of plant taxonomy, system of plant taxonomy that ...

give it its own family, Aralidiaceae, with the proviso that " me of the families are monogeneric and could possibly be merged when well-supported sister-group relationships have been established." Such a relationship was established between ''Aralidium'', '' Melanophylla'' and '' Torricellia'' in 2004, resulting in the transfer of the first two of these genera into Torricelliaceae.

References

External links

DELTA family description
Torricelliaceae Flora of Thailand Flora of Sumatra Flora of Peninsular Malaysia Flora of Borneo Monotypic Apiales genera {{Apiales-stub