Changes

''Dichrostachys villosa'' R.Vig. (1949).

== Origin and geographic distribution ==

The stems are used for posts in house construction.

Small tree; young branches glabrous, with lenticels. Leaves alternate but clustered at the apex of short lateral shoots, bipinnately compound with 13–40 pairs of pinnae, these opposite; stipules densely crowded along short shoots, narrowly ovate, 7–12 mm long; petiole 8–13 mm long, rachis 3.5–8 cm long, grooved, woolly hairy and with glands between the pinnae; leaflets 40–45 pairs per pinna, opposite, sessile, elliptical to oblong, up to 1.5 mm × 0.5 mm, truncate to rounded and asymmetrical at base and obtuse at apex, glabrous. Inflorescence an axillary head, produced solitary or in clusters on short shoots; peduncle 1.5–2.5 cm long, woolly hairy. Flowers bisexual, regular, 5-merous, sessile, white; calyx saucer-shaped, c. 1.5 mm long, woolly hairy in lower part, with short lobes; petals connate into a tube 1.5–2 mm long, lobes c. 1 mm long, acute; stamens 10, free, 4.5–6.5 mm long, anthers with a gland at apex; ovary superior, sessile, ellipsoid, woolly hairy, style c. 1.5 mm long. Fruit a linear-oblong pod 6–8.5 cm × 0.5–1 cm, with thickened and sharply ridged margins, glabrous to shortly hairy, red-brown, dehiscent with 2 woody valves.

''Alantsilodendron'' comprises 9 species, most of them restricted to southern Madagascar. It is closely related to ''Dichrostachys'' and ''Gagnebina''. ''Alantsilodendron villosum'' flowers when new leaves develop.

== Ecology ==

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