Cyclocarya is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of flowering plant

Flowering plant

The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

s in the family Juglandaceae

Juglandaceae

The Juglandaceae, also known as the Walnut Family, is a family of trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Various members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia....

, comprising a single species Cyclocarya paliurus (Wheel Wingnut), formerly treated in the genus Pterocarya as Pterocarya paliurus. It is native to eastern and central China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

.

It is a deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 growing to 30 m tall. The foliage is similar to Pterocarya, with pinnate leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 20–25 cm long with five to eleven leaflets, the terminal leaflet present; the leaflets are 5–14 cm long and 2–6 cm broad. The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s are catkin

Catkin

A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated but sometimes insect pollinated . They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged closely along a central stem which is often drooping...

s; the male (pollen) catkins are produced in clusters (not singly as in Pterocarya), the female catkins 25–30 cm long at maturity, bearing several small winged nuts

Nut (fruit)

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...

with a circular wing 2.5–6 cm diameter right round the nut (instead of two wings at the sides as in Pterocarya).