Tetraplasandra is a no longer recognised genus of plants in the ivy family, Araliaceae. They are small to medium trees, (rarely shrubs or large trees) of mesic to wet forests. [1]
Some authors have recognized as many as 19 species in Tetraplasandra, [2] while others have recognized as few as six. [1] In 2007, the authors of a scientific paper recommended that the genus be divided into nine species. [3] In 2010, all of these nine species were included in Polyscias subgenus Tetraplasandra, a subgenus of 21 species in the large genus Polyscias, which will comprise about 250 species, when about 90 undescribed species are published. [4]
The range of variation in Tetraplasandra is unusually large for a genus in Araliaceae [5] Most of the species were originally described in other genera which were later merged with Tetraplasandra.
The type species for the genus is T. hawaiensis. [6]
As defined by William R. Philipson in 1970, Tetraplasandra is endemic to Hawaii [7] and occurs on six of the eight main islands. Niʻihau and Kahoʻolawe are low-lying and dry; consequently, they do not support Tetraplasandra. T. oahuensis, T. kavaiensis, and T. hawaiensis are found on six, five, and four of the islands, respectively. The other species are single-island endemics. [1]
T. oahuensis and T.kavaiensis have done well in cultivation in Southern California. They are sensitive to heat, but very tolerant of shade, and they need some wind protection. [8] In horticulture, T. kavaiensis has often been misidentified as T. meiandra. True T. meiandra is now treated as a synonym of T. oahuensis. [9]
T. gymnocarpa, a rare tree of Oʻahu, is considered an oddity, since it is the only species in Araliaceae whose flowers have a completely superior ovary. [10]
The genus Tetraplasandra has long been known as a close relative of the obsolete genera Gastonia , Reynoldsia , and Munroidendron . This was confirmed by a pollen study in 1971. [11] In 2010, those four genera, along with Arthrophyllum and Cuphocarpus , were all sunk into Polyscias , raising the number of species in that genus from about 100 to 159. [4]
Four Hawaiian names are applied to groups of Tetraplasandra species. T. hawaiensis is known as ʻohe. T. kavaiensis and T. gymnocarpa are called ʻoheʻohe. T. waimeae is called ʻohe kikoʻola. T. oahuensis and T. lydgatei are called ʻohe mauka. The related name, ʻohe makai, is applied to Polyscias sandwicensis , formerly known as Reynoldsia sandwicensis . [8] These names closely correspond to clades currently recognized within Tetraplasandra. [3]
Most of the information in the species list is from Lowry and Plunkett (2010). [4] Synonyms are names of species accepted by Sherff (1955) [2] or by Frodin and Govaerts (2003), [5] except for Tetraplasandra lydgatei and Tetraplasandra bisattenuata, which were resurrected after 2003. For complete synonymy and distribution within the Hawaiian Islands, see Lowry (1990). [1]
The genus name was erected by Asa Gray in 1854, [12] in his account of the botany of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838-1842). [13] The name is derived from Greek, tetraplasios, "fourfold", and andros, "male, stamen". [14]
Asa Gray named only one species, T. hawaiensis, in Tetraplasandra. The tree that was later known as Tetraplasandra oahuensis (now Polyscias oahuensis), he named Gastonia oahuensis, but with considerable doubt about its placement. [5] [15]
In 1867, Horace Mann Jr. named two new species, H. kavaiensis and H. dipyrenum in Heptapleurum, a genus that Joseph Gaertner had named in 1791, [16] in De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum . [17] Mann created a new section in Heptapleurum for the two Hawaiian species. He named the new section "Pterotropia". [18] Heptapleurum is no longer recognized and its type species is now known as Schefflera stellata . [19] Earl Edward Sherff did not consider the two species named by Mann to be truly distinct. He included both in Tetraplasandra kavaiensis, which he divided into eight varieties, including T. kavaiensis var. dipyrena. [2]
From 1864 to 1868, Berthold Carl Seemann published a series of articles in the Journal of Botany, British and Foreign , all of which were entitled "Revision of the natural order Hederaceae". [20] In 1868, he published a book by the same title. [21] He divided what later became Hawaiian Tetraplasandra into four genera. He maintained Tetraplasandra for T. hawaiensis and created two new genera; Triplasandra, for Asa Gray's Gastonia oahuensis and Dipanax for Mann's Tetraplasandra dipyrena. He placed Mann's Tetraplasandra kavaiensis in Agalma, [22] a genus that Friedrich A.W. Miquel had established in 1856. [23] [24]
In 1873, Heinrich Wawra von Fernsee named a new species from Kauaʻi as Tetraplasandra waimeae. [25]
In 1888, in the first flora of the Hawaiian Islands, Wilhelm B. Hillebrand raised Horace Mann Jr's Pterotropia to generic rank as Pterotropia. He added to it, a new species from Oʻahu, which he named Pterotropia gymnocarpa. [26] This work was published posthumously by his son, William Francis Hillebrand to whom the name Pterotropia is often incorrectly attributed. The name Pterotropia is now considered illegitimate because, while Pterotropia is an older name, Dipanax is older at generic rank and therefore has priority. [2] [5]
Wilhelm B. Hillebrand put two species in Tetraplasandra: T. hawaiensis and T. waimeae. He placed four species in Triplasandra: Tri. oahuensis, Tri. meiandra, Tri. lydgatei, and Tri. kaalae. Three of these were newly named. [26] Tetraplasandra waimeae is now known to be closer to T. oahuensis than to T. hawaiensis. [3]
In 1898, in a monograph on Araliaceae for Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien , Hermann Harms adopted Hillebrand's Pterotropia, but sank Triplasandra back into Tetraplasandra. [27] Harms accepted the six species that Hillebrand had placed in Triplasandra and Tetraplasandra. He also included in Tetraplasandra, the Malesian species that was later called Gastonia serratifolia and then Polyscias serratifolia .
In 1913, Joseph F.C. Rock described a new species from Kauaʻi, and named it Tetraplasandra waialealae. [28]
In 1917, Charles Noyes Forbes named another species from Kauaʻi as Tetraplasandra racemosa. [29] Both of these are still recognized as distinct species, but in 1952, Earl Edward Sherff erected the new genus Munroidendron for T. racemosa. [30]
In 1955, Sherff wrote a revision of the Hawaiian species of Tetraplasandra. It included a detailed taxonomic history. Sherff considered Tetraplasandra to consist of three species from Malesia and 19 from Hawaii. [2] In this treatment, he named several new species and included others that had been named by Joseph F.C. Rock, Otto Degener and Carl J.F. Skottsberg. Of all of the species named by Sherff, only T. bisattenuata is still recognized today.
Sherff recognized the uniqueness of T. hawaiensis, a judgement that was corroborated by subsequent evidence. He understood that T. waimeae and T. waialealae are closely related and that these two belong in a group with T. oahuensis, T. lydgatei, and T. bisattenuata. He placed Pterotropia in synonymy under Tetraplasandra, writing that "a monographic study of Tetraplasandra reveals so much interlocking and overlapping of characters between Tetraplasandra and the species assigned to Pterotropia as to remove all warrant for their segregation". [2]
In 1990, Tetraplasandra was covered in a flora of Hawaii. [1] Only six species were recognized, pending further study. [31] These were T. gymnocarpa, T. hawaiensis, T. kavaiensis, T. oahuensis, T. waialealae, and T. waimeae. A detailed description and full synonymy were given for each species.
In 2000, a new species from the island of Kauaʻi, Tetraplasandra flynnii, was described in Novon. [32] At that time, it was known from only three individuals. Tetraplasandra lydgatei was resurrected in 2005 in a paper in Pacific Science. [33] At that time, it was known from only six individuals on the island of Oʻahu.
In 2007, a molecular phylogenetic study compared by cladistic methods, the DNA sequences of two regions of nuclear DNA for eight species of Tetraplasandra and their close relatives. The two DNA regions, known as Internal transcribed spacer and non-transcribed spacer are adjacent to genes for Ribosomal RNA. In this study, the former genus Tetraplasandra was resolved as monophyletic and consisting of three clades. [3]
T. hawaiensis was found to be sister to the rest of Tetraplasandra. T. kavaiensis, T. flynnii, and T. gymnocarpa formed a strongly supported clade. The remaining clade consisted of T. bisattenuata, T. oahuensis, T. waimeae, and T. waialealae. T. bisattenuata was found to be distinct and the authors recommended that it be reinstated. [3]
Tetraplasandra oahuensis is heterogeneous and probably polyspecific, but the authors recommended that further studies be conducted before any attempt to divide it. [3]
In 2010, a molecular phylogenetic study was published for the seven genera which at that time constituted the pinnate Araliaceae. [34] It was found that the six smaller genera are all embedded in the large genus Polyscias . In a companion paper, published simultaneously, the six smaller genera ( Arthrophyllum, Cuphocarpus, Gastonia, Reynoldsia, Munroidendron, and Tetraplasandra) were placed in synonymy under Polyscias, thereby raising the number of species in that genus from about 100 to 159. [4] About 80 species from Madagascar and ten from New Caledonia are known from recently collected specimens. They will be named and described in forthcoming papers. Many of these were photographed during field work. [35]
Polyscias has been divided into 11 subgenera, with seven species placed incertae sedis, that is, without decision on which part of Polyscias they should belong to. [4] Polyscias subgenus Tetraplasandra comprises 21 species, consisting of the former genera Tetraplasandra, Munroidendron, and Reynoldsia, as well as the two Malesian species that were in Gastonia, and four of the six species that Philipson had placed in Polyscias section Eupteron. [36]
Polyscias acuminata might also belong to Polyscias subgenus Tetraplasandra. It was placed incertae sedis, but has characters resembling those of subgenus Tetraplasandra. In other ways, however, it resembles Polyscias nodosa , the sole member of Polyscias subgenus Eupteron. [4]
The former genus Tetraplasandra is a monophyletic group and is sister to a clade consisting of only two species: Polyscias racemosa and Polyscias sandwicensis. The former had constituted the monospecific genus Munroidendron and the latter is the type species for the previously accepted genus Reynoldsia. This "Hawaiian clade" of 11 species consists of all of the native Hawaiian members of Polyscias. [3]
The former genus Reynoldsia turned out to be diphyletic, with its single Hawaiian species not forming a clade with the four species from Samoa, Tahiti, and the Marquesas. Basal relationships in Polyscias subgenus Tetraplasandra remain obscure because of insufficient taxon sampling in phylogenetic studies.
The Araliaceae are a family of flowering plants composed of about 43 genera and around 1500 species consisting of primarily woody plants and some herbaceous plants commonly called the ginseng family. The morphology of Araliaceae varies widely, but it is predominantly distinguishable based on its woody habit, tropical distribution, and the presence of simple umbels.
Bidens is a genus of flowering plants in the aster family, Asteraceae. The genus include roughly 230 species which are distributed worldwide. Despite their global distribution, the systematics and taxonomy of the genus has been described as complicated and unorganized. The common names beggarticks, black jack, burr marigolds, cobbler's pegs, Spanish needles, stickseeds, tickseeds and tickseed sunflowers refer to the fruits of the plants, most of which are bristly and barbed. The generic name refers to the same character; Bidens comes from the Latin bis ("two") and dens ("tooth").
GastoniaCommerson ex Lamarck is a formerly accepted genus of plants in the ivy and ginseng family, Araliaceae. It had been known as an unnatural group, but was recognized as late as 2010, when its nine species were distributed to four different subgenera of the large genus Polyscias. Because the genus Gastonia is now obsolete, its species are herein referred to by their names in Polyscias.
Schefflera is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araliaceae with 13 species native to New Zealand and some Pacific islands.
Polyscias racemosa, or false 'ohe, is a species of flowering plant in the family Araliaceae. As Munroidendron racemosum, the species was until recently considered to be the only species in the monotypic genus Munroidendron. With the change in classification, Munroidendron is now obsolete. Polyscias racemosa is endemic to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. It is very rare in the wild and some of its original habitat has been replaced by sugar cane plantations. It was thought for some time to be probably extinct, but was rediscovered a few years prior to 1967.
Meryta is a genus in the flowering plant family Araliaceae. There are 28 described species in the genus and a number of undescribed species, all small, resinous trees of the subtropical and tropical Pacific Ocean, characterized by huge, simple leaves and a dioecious sexual system, a unique combination in Araliaceae. Meryta has its center of diversity in New Caledonia. Phylogenetic analyses have placed Meryta as a monophyletic genus in one of the three major clades of the Araliaciae, the Polyscias-Pseudopanax group, and more specifically in the Pacific Schefflera subclade.
Arthrophyllum is a defunct genus of plants in the family Araliaceae. It was recognized by most authors until 2010, when all of its 30 species were "sunk" into Polyscias subgenus Arthrophyllum.
Cheirodendron is a genus of flowering plant in the family Araliaceae. All six species in the genus are endemic to Polynesia. The five Hawaiian species are generally called ʻōlapa, and occur in wet forests on all major islands as well as some mesic forests, such as Kipuka Puaulu.
Cuphocarpus is an obsolete genus of flowering plants in the family Araliaceae. Mabberley (2008) treated it as a synonym of Polyscias, but other authors still recognized it at that time. In 2010, in a phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences, it was shown that Cuphocarpus was biphyletic and embedded in the large genus Polyscias. In an accompanying paper, Polyscias was divided into 11 subgenera, with seven species left incertae sedis.
Polyscias is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araliaceae. They bear pinnately compound leaves.
Raukaua is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araliaceae. It has an austral distribution, being indigenous to southern Argentina and Chile, as well as New Zealand and the island of Tasmania.
Reynoldsia is a formerly recognised genus of plants in the ivy family, Araliaceae. In 2003, Kew Gardens published a checklist for Araliaceae, in which eight species were recognized for Reynoldsia: four from Samoa, two from Tahiti, one from the Marquesas, and one from Hawaii. In 2010, a phylogenetic comparison of DNA data showed that Reynoldsia was polyphyletic, consisting of two groups that are not each other's closest relatives. In a companion paper, three of the species were "sunk" into synonymy with others, reducing the number of species to five. All species that were formerly in Reynoldsia are now in Polyscias subgenus Tetraplasandra, a subgenus of 21 species indigenous to Malesia and the Pacific islands.
Heptapleurum is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araliaceae, native to the Indian Subcontinent, Tibet, southern China, Hainan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Malesia, Papuasia, Japan, and Australia. It was resurrected from Schefflera in 2020. It is currently the largest genus of Araliaceae with 321 accepted species.
Aralioideae is a subfamily of flowering plants contains around 50 recognized genera. These include the genus Panax, to which ginseng belongs. Other notable species are the Angelica-tree, the devil's club, or common ivy.
Polyscias maraisiana is a species of plant in the family Araliaceae, formerly named Gastonia mauritiana.
Polyscias rodriguesiana is a rare species of plant in the family Araliaceae.
Polyscias sandwicensis, known as the 'ohe makai or ʻOhe kukuluāeʻo in Hawaiian, is a species of flowering plant in the family Araliaceae, that is endemic to Hawaii. It is a tree, reaching a height of 4.6–15 m (15–49 ft) high with a trunk diameter of 0.5–0.6 m (1.6–2.0 ft). It can be found at elevations of 30–800 m (98–2,625 ft) on most main islands. Polyscias sandwicensis generally inhabits lowland dry forests, but is occasionally seen in coastal mesic and mixed mesic forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Schiedea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae. It contains 34 species and is endemic to Hawaii.
Polyscias gymnocarpa, commonly known as the Koolau Range 'ohe or Koʻolau tetraplasandra, is a species of flowering plant in the family Araliaceae, that is endemic to the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Polyscias oahuensis is a species of tree in the ivy family known by the common name 'ohe mauka. It is endemic to Hawaii, where it occurs on all the major islands except for Niihau and Kahoolawe.
Gregory M. Plunkett, Jun Wen, Porter P. Lowry II, Murray J. Henwood, Pedro Fiaschi, and Anthony D. Mitchell. accepted, undated. Araliaceae, pages ??. In: Klaus Kubitzki (editor); ?? (volume editor). The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants volume ??. Springer-Verlag: Berlin; Heidelberg, Germany. ISBN ??