''Balthasaria'' is a genus of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

in the family

Pentaphylacaceae The Pentaphylacaceae are a small family of plants within the order Ericales. In the APG III system of 2009, it includes the former family Ternstroemiaceae. Genera In 2014, the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website included 14 genera in the family: Plant ...

. They are found in Africa, within

Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

and

Zaïre Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

. Originally the species was called ''Melchiora'' by

Clarence Emmeren Kobuski Clarence Emmeren Kobuski (January 9, 1900 – May 9, 1963) was an American botanist and biologist. He was the curator of the Arnold Arboretum and the Gray Herbarium at Harvard University from 1954 until his death in 1963. He never married nor ha ...

in 1956 in honour of

Hans Melchior Hans Melchior (5 August 1894 – 12 March 1984) was a German botanist. Melchior was born in Berlin. He studied botany at Berlin University, became assistant to G. Haberlandt at the Institute for plant physiology and took his doctor's degree w ...

(1894 - 1984) a German botanist, but this was deemed incorrect by

IPNI The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) describes itself as "a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes." Coverage of plant names is best at the rank of species and genus. It inclu ...

, as Kobuski should have formed his name by adding 'ia' to Melchior, becoming an illegitimate homonym for the fungal genus ''Melchioria'' published by Penzig and Saccardo in 1897, in honor of

Melchior Treub Melchior Treub (26 December 1851 – 3 October 1910) was a Dutch botanist. He worked at the Bogor Botanical Gardens in Buitenzorg on the island of Java, south of Batavia, Dutch East Indies, gaining renown for his work on tropical flora. He also f ...

. Botanist

Bernard Verdcourt Bernard Verdcourt (20 January 1925 – 25 October 2011) was a biologist and taxonomist, most widely known as a botanist and latterly an honorary research fellow at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London. Prior to coming to Kew in 1964, he ...

noted "Since a new name is inevitable I have chosen one based on one of the other 'wise men", ie, Balthazar. It contains the following species : * '' Balthasaria mannii'' (Oliv.) Verdc. * '' Balthasaria schliebenii'' (Melch.) Verdc.

References

Pentaphylacaceae Ericales genera Afromontane flora Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Pentaphylacaceae-stub