Millingtonia Roxburgh, Pl. Coromandel 3: 50. 1820 ["1819"], not Linnaeus f. (1782); Wellingtonia Meisner (1840), not Lindley (1853).

Trees or shrubs, evergreen or deciduous. Buds naked, brownish tomentose. Leaves simple or odd pinnate, leaves or leaflets entire or often dentate; petiole usually thickened at base. Inflorescence terminal, sometimes axillary, a pyramidal panicle, usually profusely flowered but sometimes sparsely so, up to 4 × branched and very large. Flowers numerous, 1-3 mm in diam., hermaphroditic, zygomorphic, sessile or shortly pedicellate. Sepals [3 or](4 or)5(-9), imbricate, with bracts beneath. Petals 5, imbricate, unequal, 3 outer ones larger, usually suborbicular or reniform, convex, 2 inner ones much smaller, bifid or entire, sometimes 3-lobed, ± adherent to base of filaments of fertile stamens, concealed under outer petals at bud stage. Fertile stamens 2, opposite 2 inner petals; filaments flattened, short, incurved at apex into a cup-shaped connective; anthers 2-celled, globose or elliptic; staminodes 3, opposite outer sepals, adherent to their bases. Disk cup-shaped or shallowly cup-shaped, 5-dentate. Ovary sessile, 2(or 3)-loculed, with 1 or 2 ovules per locule. Fruit a drupe, small; mesocarp fleshy; endocarp stony or crustaceous. Seed ± globose, usually somewhat concave ventrally, without endosperm.

The reader may also wish to refer to Beusekom, Revision of Meliosma (Sabiaceae), section Lorenzanea excepted, living and fossil, geography and phylogeny (Blumea 19: 355-529. 1971).

Meliosma cavaleriei H. Léveillé (Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 9: 457. 1911) is probably a synonym of Ampelopsis chaffanjonii (H. Léveillé & Vaniot) Rehder in the Vitaceae (see p. 183).

About 50 species: SE Asia, Central and South America; 29 species (ten endemic) in China.