''Cladrastis'' (yellowwood) is a genus of nine species of
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of ...
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
, and one to southeastern North America.
Species of ''Cladrastis'' are small to medium-sized
deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, a ...
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
s typically growing 10–20 m tall, exceptionally to 27 m tall. The leaves are compound pinnate, with 5–17 alternately arranged leaflets. The
flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism ...
s are fragrant, white or pink, produced in
raceme
A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the sh ...
s or
panicle
A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is ...
s 15–40 cm long. The
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...
is a pod 3–8 cm long, containing one to six seeds.
''Cladrastis'' is related to the genus ''
Maackia
''Maackia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. There are about 12 species, all native to eastern Asia, with six endemic to China.Pickeringia'' and ''
Styphnolobium
''Styphnolobium'' is a small genus of three or four species of small trees and shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae, formerly included within a broader interpretation of the genus '' Sophora''. It was recently assigned t ...
'' form a
monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic ...
clade known as the ''Cladrastis'' clade; as the other two originated from within ''Cladrastis'', ''Cladrastis'' is paraphyletic.
Cladrastis wilsonii
''Cladrastis'' (yellowwood) is a genus of nine species of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae, eight native to eastern Asia, and one to southeastern North America.
Species of ''Cladrastis'' are small to medium-sized deciduous trees typic ...