Four new genera of woody Apiaceae of Madagascar

Abstract

SummaryVan Wyk, B.‐E., Tilney, P. M. & Winter, P. J. D.: Four new genera of woody Apiaceae of Madagascar. – Taxon 48: 737‐745. 1999. – ISSN 0040‐0262.Eight Malagasi species of Apiaceae were previously misplaced in the African genus Heteromorpha but have been recently excluded from it. They, with the E. African species of Pseudocarum, have remarkably unspecialised fruits and do not fit within Drude's classification system for the family, as they combine vittae characteristic of the Saniculoideae and Apioideae. They have oil ducts in the fruit ribs (intrajugal vittae) in addition to the normal ones between the ribs (vallecular vittae). The species (except one) have dentate‐serrate leaf segments, and some also have dentate involucral bracts, reminiscent of the Saniculoideae. These characteristics are interpreted as symplesiomorphies, and the group of species as a whole is undoubtedly paraphyletic. A new generic classification is proposed, and a key to the genera and species is provided. Four genera, Andriana, Cannaboides, Pseudocannaboides, and Tana, are described as new, to accommodate seven species and one additional variety: A. coursii, A. marojejyensis, A. tsaratananensis, C. andohahelensis, C. andohahelensis var. denudata, C. betsileensis, Pseudocannaboides andringitrensis, and T. bojeriana. Pseudocarum laxiflorum and P. laxiflorum var. alticola are additional new combinations.