''Hecatostemon completus'' is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of shrub or tree native to northeastern

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 ...

and is the only member of the

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 ...

''Hecatostemon''.

Taxonomy

Formerly classified in the

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 ...

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 ...

analyses based on DNA data indicate that this species, along with its close relatives in '' Casearia'', ''

Samyda ''Samyda'' is a genus of plants in family Salicaceae.Tropicos
1. September 2018 There are 11 species, chiefly shrubs of the ...

'', '' Laetia'', and '' Zuelania'', are better placed in a broadly circumscribed

Salicaceae The Salicaceae are the willow family of flowering plants. The traditional family (Salicaceae ''sensu stricto'') includes the willows, poplars. Genetic studies summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) have greatly expanded the circumsc ...

Description

''Hecatostemon'' differs from its close relatives in having numerous

stamens The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filamen ...

in three series and one ring of

staminodes In botany, a staminode is an often rudimentary, sterile or abortive stamen, which means that it does not produce pollen.Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; ''A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent''; Published by Gerald Duckworth & Co ...

, or "disk," inside the stamens.

Distribution and habitat

The species is found in tropical deciduous forests,

matorral 300px, Springtime in Santiago.html" ;"title="Chilean matorral a few kilometers north of Santiago">Chilean matorral a few kilometers north of Santiago along the Pan-American Highway Matorral is a Spanish language, Spanish word, along with ''tomil ...

es,

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

hs, and even saline flats in northern Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q9002352, from2=Q15390904 Salicaceae Monotypic Malpighiales genera Flora of Southern America Salicaceae genera Taxa named by Sidney Fay Blake