''Tetraphyllum'' is a genus of
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 belonging to the family
Gesneriaceae
Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), with ...
. , there was no consensus as to whether the correct scientific name for the genus is ''Tetraphyllum'' or ''Tetraphylloides'', some sources using the former and some the latter.
Its native range is Eastern
Himalaya
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
to
Indo-China.
[
]
Description
Species of ''Tetraphyllum'' are perennial
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...
herbaceous plant
Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials.
Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous"
The fourth edition of t ...
s. They have erect stems, which die after flowering (monocarpic). Typically the stems have what appears to be a whorl of four leaves at the very top of the stem with pairs of scale leaves lower down. The flowers are arranged in short cymes
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed on ...
. The fused petals are pink or blue, forming a wide funnel shape. There are either four or two stamens. The fruit is a capsule that splits into four valves.[
]
Taxonomy
The genus name ''Tetraphyllum'' for plants in the family Gesneriaceae was first published in 1883 by Charles Baron Clarke, with the name attributed to William Griffith.[ Earlier, in 1880, A. Hosius and W. von der Marck had published the same genus name for a fossil, which they considered might be a plant, classifying it as "Plantae ''incertae sedis''".][ If both names were published under the botanical code (now the ; ICNafp), then ''Tetraphyllum'' Griff. ex C.B.Clarke is an illegitimate later homonym of ''Tetraphyllum'' A.Hosius & W. von der Marck. On this basis, in 2018, ]Alexander Borissovitch Doweld
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
published the replacement name
In biological nomenclature, a ''nomen novum'' (Latin for "new name"), new replacement name (or replacement name, new substitute name, substitute name) is a scientific name that is created specifically to replace another scientific name, but only w ...
''Tetraphylloides'',[ which the ]International Plant Names Index
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 ...
(IPNI) and Plants of the World Online
Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was launched in March 2017 with the ultimate aim being "to enable users to access information on all the world's known seed-bearing plants by ...
regarded as the correct name .[ However, as early as 1881 it was doubted whether the fossil named in 1880 was actually a plant, and in 2019, Markus Bertling treated the 1880 name as applying to a trace fossil, and hence an ichnotaxon name not subject to the ICNafp, arguing that this rendered the 1883 name legitimate.][ IPNI does not accept this argument, on the grounds that the botanical status of the name, and hence its illegitimacy, applies at the time it was published.][ A 2020 key to the Gesneriaceae accepts Bertling's view and uses the name ''Tetraphyllum''.][
''Tetraphyllum'' is placed in subfamily ]Didymocarpoideae
The Didymocarpoideae are a subfamily of plants in the family Gesneriaceae. It was formerly the subfamily Cyrtandroideae. This subfamily consists mostly of tropical and subtropical Old World genera, found in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. One spec ...
, tribe Trichosporeae.[
]
Species
, Plants of the World Online accepted three species (placing them in the genus ''Tetraphylloides''):[
*'' Tetraphyllum bengalense'' , syn. ''Tetraphylloides bengalensis''
*'']Tetraphyllum confertiflorum
''Tetraphyllum'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Gesneriaceae. , there was no consensus as to whether the correct scientific name for the genus is ''Tetraphyllum'' or ''Tetraphylloides'', some sources using the former and s ...
'' , syn. ''Tetraphylloides confertiflora''
*''Tetraphyllum roseum
''Tetraphyllum'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Gesneriaceae. , there was no consensus as to whether the correct scientific name for the genus is ''Tetraphyllum'' or ''Tetraphylloides'', some sources using the former and s ...
'' , syn. ''Tetraphylloides roseus''
References
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q9086511, from2=Q105997765
Didymocarpoideae
Gesneriaceae genera