Notes on African and Madagascan Euphorbiaceae

Abstract

Upon reading my paper (Radcliffe-Smith 1990) describing this genus, Dr Gordon McPherson (pers. comm.) of the Missouri Botanical Garden, was struck by the apparent similarity between it and the Madagascan endemic genus Danguyodrypetes Leandri, established for D. manongarivensis (Leandri 1938), but with the later addition of 3 further species (Leandri 1957a, b), D. abbayesii, D. ambigua and D. fiherenensis. Such a similarity would not necessarily have been apparent from Leandri (1958), since although Aerisilvaea would have keyed out to Danguyodrypetes, a number of its distinctive features, such as the accrescent female calyx-lobes and the solitary seed in each locule, with its deeply-invaginated hilum, were not apparent from the descriptions indeed, the seeds were at that time unknown. However, Dr McPherson has discovered that, from an examination of more recent material, the female calyx can be accrescent to up to 8 x 6 mm, and the seeds are solitary in each locule and have an invaginated hilum. Differences do exist, such as the lack of a pistillode in the male flowers of Danguyodrypetes, the rather more prominent male disk and the somewhat longer styles in that genus, but as the pistillode of Aerisilvaea is 'minutissimum', and 'vix a textura disci distinctum' (RadcliffeSmith 1990) it would appear that the differences are of specific importance rather than generic. Aerisilvaea thus seems to be a new and mainland African species of a Madagascan genus hitherto considered endemic. Not long before receiving Dr McPherson's letter, however, I had received Professor Grady L. Webster's draft, "Synopsis of the suprageneric taxa of Euphorbiaceae" (Webster 1990). Aerisilvaea does not appear, although it was later included (Webster 1994: 44), but Danguyodrypetes, kept up in a revision (Webster 1989: 5) of his first classification (Webster 1975), has been placed in the synonymy of Lingelsheimia Pax from Zaire and Gabon, but without all the necessary new combinations having been made. Certainly in all essential features Danguyodrypetes is