See text Melicoccus is a genus of ten species of flowering plants in the family Sapindaceae, native to tropical regions of northern and western South America.

Several species, but principally M. bijugatus, are widely cultivated in their native areas and elsewhere in Central America and the Caribbean for their fruit.

In 1760, Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin described the first species in Browne's genus, which he named M. bijugatus.

[2] In 1888 German taxonomist Ludwig Radlkofer placed Melicoccus in the tribe Melicocceae together with eight other genera.

In his monograph on the Neotropical members of the tribe (Talisia and Melicoccus) Pedro Acevedo-Rodríguez suggested that although Talisia and Melicoccus appeared to form a monophyletic group, the other (Old World) genera probably did not belong to the same lineage.