''Rochelia'' is a genus of

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 belonging to the family

Boraginaceae Boraginaceae, the Borago, borage or forget-me-not family, includes about 2,000 species of shrubs, trees, and herbs in 146 to 154 genus, genera with a worldwide distribution. The APG IV system from 2016 classifies the Boraginaceae as single famil ...

. It is also in subtribe ''Eritrichiinae''. Its wide native range extends from Europe (within Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corsica, Crimean Peninsula, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, the Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, North European Russia, Norway, Poland, Romania, South European Russis, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and Yugoslavia) to Asia (in Altai, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, North Caucasus, Tajikistan, Transcaucasus, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuva, Uzbekistan and Western

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 Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 pea ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

and

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

, (in China), north-western Africa (in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) and Western Asia (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Oman, Pakistan and Palestine). The genus name of ''Rochelia'' is in honour of Anton Rochel (1770–1847), an Austrian surgeon and naturalist, known for his botanical investigations of

Banat Banat ( , ; ; ; ) is a geographical and Historical regions of Central Europe, historical region located in the Pannonian Basin that straddles Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. It is divided among three countries: the eastern part lie ...

and the

Carpathians The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains ...

(Mountains). It was first described and published in Flora Vol.7 on page 243 in 1824. The genus is recognized by the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and producti ...

and the

Agricultural Research Service The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the principal in-house research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). ARS is one of four agencies in USDA's Research, Education and Economics mission area. ARS is charged with ext ...

and was last updated on 31 July 2018, but they only list 2 species; ''Rochelia disperma'' and ''Rochelia stylaris'' It was found by

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

analysis, that ''Rochelia'' is not

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

but

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 ...

(has more than one common ancestor).

Known species

According to Kew: *'' Rochelia bungei'' *'' Rochelia campanulata'' *'' Rochelia cancellata'' *'' Rochelia cardiosepala'' *'' Rochelia chitralensis'' *'' Rochelia claviculata'' *'' Rochelia disperma'' *'' Rochelia drobovii'' *'' Rochelia jackabaghii'' *'' Rochelia laxa'' *'' Rochelia leiocarpa'' *'' Rochelia leiosperma'' *'' Rochelia mirheydari'' *'' Rochelia pamirica'' *'' Rochelia peduncularis'' *'' Rochelia persica'' *'' Rochelia pygmaea'' *'' Rochelia rectipes'' *'' Rochelia retorta'' *'' Rochelia retrosepala'' *'' Rochelia sessiliflora'' *'' Rochelia stylaris''

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q9070100 Boraginoideae Boraginaceae genera Plants described in 1824 Flora of the Palearctic realm Taxa named by Ludwig Reichenbach