''Soyauxia'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Peridiscaceae Peridiscaceae is a Family (biology), family of flowering plants in the Order (biology), order Saxifragales.Peter F. Stevens. 2001 onwards. "Peridiscaceae". At: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website At: Missouri Botanical Garden Website. (see ''External li ...

.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, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

s or erect

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

s from wet

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s of

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

. Eight

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

s have been published in ''Soyauxia''."Soyauxia" At: International Plant Names Index. (see ''External links'' below). Additional species have been discovered, but their

names A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...

and descriptions will not be published until 2009 or 2010. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

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 Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...

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 t ...

or in the

defunct Defunct may refer to: * Defunct (video game), ''Defunct'' (video game), 2014 * Zombie process or defunct process, in Unix-like operating systems See also

* * :Former entities * End-of-life product * Obsolescence {{Disambiguation ...

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 bec ...

. The first

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study Study or studies may refer to: General * Education **Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Field of study * Observational study * Scientific study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * 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 A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

.): * '' 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 Karl Gilg (20 January 19 ...

Baker f. Edmund Gilbert Baker (1864–1949) was a British plant collector and botanist. He was the son of John Gilbert Baker John Gilbert Baker (13 January 1834 – 16 August 1920) was an England, English botanist. His son was the botanist Edmund G ...

* '' Soyauxia floribunda'', Hutchinson * '' Soyauxia gabonensis'', Oliv. * '' Soyauxia glabrescens'', Engler * '' Soyauxia grandifolia'',

& Stapf * '' Soyauxia ledermanii'',

Sleumer Hermann Otto Sleumer (February 21, 1906 in Saarbrücken – October 1, 1993 in Oegstgeest) was a Dutch botanist of Germany, German birth. The plant genera ''Sleumerodendron'' Robert Virot, Virot (Proteaceae) and ''Sleumeria'' Timothy Michael Arthur ...

* '' Soyauxia talbotii'',

* '' Soyauxia velutina'', Hutchinson &

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

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 of ...

''.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, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also 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 ''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, '' ...

,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 sequence A nucleic acid sequence is a succession of bases within the nucleotides forming alleles within a DNA (using GACT) or RNA (GACU) molecule. This succession is denoted by a series of a set of five different letters that indicate the order of the nu ...

s to include ''Soyauxia'', it was shown that ''Soyauxia'' is

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

to a

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

of two

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

n trees, ''

Peridiscus ''Peridiscus lucidus'' is a species of flowering plant, the only species in the genus ''Peridiscus'', which is one of four genera within the family Peridiscaceae. It grows in Venezuela and northern Brazil, in evergreen, sometimes riverine fores ...

'' and ''

Whittonia ''Whittonia'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Peridiscaceae. It only contains one known species, ''Whittonia guianensis''. It is native to Guyana. The genus name of ''Whittonia'' is in honour of Brian Alan Wh ...

''. 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 () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

study. In that study, it was shown that Brenan's concept of Medusandraceae is

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

over Peridiscaceae

sensu stricto ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular c ...

, 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