''Merrittia'' is a monotypic 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

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

. The only species is ''Merrittia benguetensis'' It is native to the Philippines. The genus name of ''Merrittia'' is in honour of Melvin Leroy Merritt (1879–1961), an American forester for the Philippine Bureau of Forestry and the

US Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...

. The Latin

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of ''benguetensis'' refers to

Benguet Benguet (), officially the Province of Benguet ('';'' ; pag, Luyag/Probinsia na Benguet; ilo, Probinsia ti Benguet; ), is a landlocked province of the Philippines located in the southern tip of the Cordillera Administrative Region in the islan ...

, a Province of the Philippines. Both genus and species were first described and published in Philipp. J. Sci., C Vol.5 on page 396 in 1910.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q10328864, from2=Q15558176 Inuleae Monotypic Asteraceae genera Plants described in 1910 Flora of the Philippines