''Soyauxia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Peridiscaceae Peridiscaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Saxifragales.Peter F. Stevens. 2001 onwards. "Peridiscaceae". At: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website At: Missouri Botanical Garden Website. (see ''External links'' below). Four genera comprise ...

.Clemens Bayer. 2007. "Peridiscaceae" pages 297-300. In: Klaus Kubitski (editor). ''The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants'' volume IX. Springer-Verlag: Berlin;Heidelberg, Germany. They are small

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s or erect shrubs from wet

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s of

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

. Eight specific names have been published in ''Soyauxia''."Soyauxia" At: International Plant Names Index. (see ''External links'' below). Additional species have been discovered, but their names and descriptions will not be published until 2009 or 2010. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

for the genus is Soyauxia gabonensis.''Soyauxia'' In: Index Nominum Genericorum. In:

Regnum Vegetabile The International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) is an organization established to promote an understanding of plant biodiversity, facilitate international communication of research between botanists, and oversee matters of uniformity and ...

(see ''External links'' below). ''Soyauxia'' was long considered an anomaly and it has been variously classified by different authors, usually in

Passifloraceae The Passifloraceae are a family of flowering plants, containing about 750 species classified in around 27 genera. They include trees, shrubs, lianas, and climbing plants, and are mostly found in tropical regions. The family takes its name from ...

or in the

defunct Defunct (no longer in use or active) may refer to: * ''Defunct'' (video game), 2014 * Zombie process or defunct process, in Unix-like operating systems See also * * :Former entities * End-of-life product * Obsolescence Obsolescence is t ...

plant family

Flacourtiaceae The Flacourtiaceae is a defunct family of flowering plants whose former members have been scattered to various families, mostly to the Achariaceae and Salicaceae. It was so vaguely defined that hardly anything seemed out of place there and it beca ...

. The first molecular phylogenetic study to include ''Soyauxia'' placed it in Peridiscaceae.Soltis, D. E.; Clayton, J. W.; Davis, C. C.; Gitzendanner, M. A.; Cheek, M.; Savolainen, V.; Amorim, A. M.; Soltis, P. S. (2007):Monophyly and relationships of the enigmatic family Peridiscaceae. ''Taxon'' 56(1):65-73. Its position within that family was determined in 2009.Kenneth J. Wurdack and Charles C. Davis. 2009. "Malpighiales phylogenetics: Gaining ground on one of the most recalcitrant clades in the angiosperm tree of life." ''American Journal of Botany'' 96(8):1551-1570.

Species

''Soyauxia'' contains the following species (but this list may be incomplete or contain synonyms.): * '' Soyauxia bipindensis'',

Gilg Gilg is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Candice Gilg (born 1972), French freestyle skier * Deborah R. Gilg (born 1951), American lawyer *Ernest Friedrich Gilg (1867–1933), German botanist * Karl Gilg (1901–1981), German ch ...

ex Baker f. * '' Soyauxia floribunda'', Hutchinson * '' Soyauxia gabonensis'',

Oliv. Daniel Oliver, FRS (6 February 1830, Newcastle upon Tyne – 21 December 1916) was an English botanist. He was Librarian of the Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1860–1890 and Keeper there from 1864–1890, and Professor of Botany at ...

* '' Soyauxia glabrescens'', Engler * '' Soyauxia grandifolia'',

& Stapf * '' Soyauxia ledermanii'', Sleumer * '' Soyauxia talbotii'', Baker f. * '' Soyauxia velutina'', Hutchinson &

Dalziel Dalziel, Dalzell or Dalyell ( ) is a Scottish surname. Pronunciation The unintuitive spelling of the name is due to it being an anglicisation of Scottish Gaelic ''Dail-gheal'', meaning bright dale. The sound now spelled with a or is historica ...

History

The genus ''Soyauxia'' was named by Daniel Oliver in 1880, in a book whose final edition was entitled ''Hooker's

Icones Plantarum ''Icones Plantarum'' is an extensive series of published volumes of botanical illustration, initiated by Sir William Jackson Hooker. The Latin name of the work means "Illustrations of Plants". The illustrations are drawn from herbarium specimens o ...

''.Joseph Dalton Hooker. 1880. ''Hooker's Icones Plantarum'' volume XIV (volume IV of the third series):page 73 and plate 1393. (see ''External links'' at

). It was named for the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

botanist and plant collector Hermann Soyaux. Upon naming it, Oliver wrote Oliver placed the new genus in Passifloraceae and described one species, ''Soyauxia gabonensis''. In 1953, John Brenan put ''Soyauxia'' in Medusandraceae,John P.M. Brenan. 1953. "''Soyauxia'', a second genus of Medusandraceae". ''Kew Bulletin'' 8:507-511. a family that he had established the year before.John P.M. Brenan. 1952. "Plants of the Cambridge Expedition, 1947-1948: II. A new order of flowering plants from the British Cameroons". ''Kew Bulletin'' 7:227-236. Brenan's classification was not generally followed by others, and John Hutchinson wrote a detailed account of why he thought that ''Soyauxia'' and ''

Medusandra ''Medusandra'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Peridiscaceae."Peridiscaceae" At: Peter F. Stevens (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. At: Missouri Botanical Garden Website. (see external links below) It has two species, '' ...

'' were not closely related.John Hutchinson. ''The Families of Flowering Plants, Third Edition (1973)''. Oxford University Press: London. In 2007, in the first comparison of DNA sequences to include ''Soyauxia'', it was shown that ''Soyauxia'' is

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a family, familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

to a clade of two

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

n trees, '' Peridiscus'' and '' Whittonia''. The authors recommended that ''Soyauxia'' be moved to Peridiscaceae. The position of ''Soyauxia'' within Peridiscaceae was clarified in 2009, with the inclusion of ''Medusandra'' in a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

study. In that study, it was shown that Brenan's concept of Medusandraceae is paraphyletic over Peridiscaceae sensu stricto, but that Brenan had been prescient in his perception of a relationship between ''Medusandra'' and ''Soyauxia''. The authors recommended that ''Medusandra'' as well as ''Soyauxia'' be transferred to Peridiscaceae.

Species

History

References

External links