Named for Stanesby Alchorne (1727–1800), an English plant collector.
Shrubs or trees, evergreen, perennial, male and female flowers on the same plant or male and female flowers on separate plants; stems and foliage without latex. Indumentum of simple, multicellular hairs. Stipules entire, inconspicuous, soon shed. Leaves alternate, stalked to stalkless, unlobed, palmi- or penninerved, without glands; margins scalloped to saw-toothed. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, spike-like or paniculate, solitary or fascicled, usually unisexual, with flowers in bracted clusters with a single involucre. Male flowers stalkless to stalked; calyx lobes 2-5, edge to edge, more or less equal; petals absent; disk absent; stamens 8 or rarely fewer, filaments free or slightly fused at base, attached to a slightly raised receptacle. Female flowers stalkless to stalked; calyx lobes 3-6, overlapping; petals absent; disk absent; ovary 1-4-chambered, ovules 1 per chamber; styles free or shortly fused at base, simple or rarely divided into 2. Fruits capsular, dehiscent, 3-lobed, surface spiny. Seeds roundish; ecarunculate.
Tolerant of mild frosts.
About 50 species in the tropics and subtropics, with 3 species in Australia. 1 native species is commonly cultivated.
Cuttings or seeds.
Leaves toothed with short, sharp spine-tipped teeth.
Airy Shaw (1980).
Source: (2002). Euphorbiaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.