Dodonaea

Dodonaea
Dodonaea viscosa foliage and flowers
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Sapindales
Family:	Sapindaceae
Subfamily:	Dodonaeoideae
Genus:	Dodonaea Mill.
Species
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Dodonaea is a genus of about 70 species of flowering plants, often known as hop-bushes, in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae. It has a cosmopolitan distribution in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions of Africa, the Americas, southern Asia and Australasia. By far the highest species diversity is in Australia. The genus is named after Rembert Dodoens, also known as Rembertus Dodonaeus.

They are shrubs and small trees growing to 1–5 metres (3.3–16.4 ft) tall. The leaves are alternate, simple or pinnate. The flowers are produced in short racemes. The fruit is a capsule, often with two or three wings. Dodonaea species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Aenetus eximia and Aenetus ligniveren.

Dodonaea is recognized as the largest genus of Sapindaceae. This taxa includes 70 species widely distributed in continental Australia. The only other species of the Dodonaea widely spread beyond mainland Australia, Dodonaea viscosa, is believed to be one of the world’s greatly disseminated transoceanic plants.

The first attempts to distinguish infrageneric categories within Dodonaea genus were based on leaf morphology, specifically, two sections - Eu-Dodonaea (simple leaves) and Remberta (pinnate leaves) were differentiated. Later this sectional classification was expanded by Bentham, who included 39 species in five series - four simple-leaved series further divided on capsule-appendage morphology (series Cyclopterae, Platypterae, Cornutae and Apterae) and one pinnate-leaved species (series Pinnatae).

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Wikipedia