Taxonomic Knowledge Research Articles

Assessing deep convolutional neural network models and their comparative performance for automated medicinal plant identification from leaf images

Medicinal plants have got notable attention in recent years in the field of pharmaceutical and drug research. The high demand of herbal medicine in the rural areas of developing countries and drug industries necessitates correct identification of the medicinal plant species which is challenging in absence of expert taxonomic knowledge. Against this backdrop, we attempted to assess the performance of seven advanced deep learning algorithms in the automated identification of the plants from their leaf images and to suggest the best model from a comparative study of the models. We meticulously trained VGG16, VGG19, DenseNet201, ResNet50V2, Xception, InceptionResNetV2, and InceptionV3 deep neural network models. This training utilized a dataset comprising 5878 images encompassing 30 medicinal species distributed among 20 families. Our approach involved two avenues: the utilization of public data (PI) and a blend of public and field data (PFI), the latter featuring intricate backgrounds. Our study elucidates the robustness of these models in accurately identifying and classifying both interfamily and interspecies variations. Despite variations in accuracy across diverse families and species, the models demonstrated adeptness in these classifications. Comparing the models, we unearthed a crucial insight: the Normalized leverage factor (γω) for DenseNet201 stands at 0.19, elevating it to the pinnacle position for PI with a remarkable 99.64 % accuracy and 98.31 % precision. In the PFI scenario, the same model achieves a γω of 0.15 with a commendable 97 % accuracy. These findings serve as a guiding beacon for shaping future application tools designed to automate medicinal plant identification at the user level.

Description of six new cyanobacterial species from soil biocrusts on San Nicolas Island, California, in three genera previously restricted to Brazil.

As the taxonomic knowledge of cyanobacteria from terrestrial environments increases, it remains important to analyze biodiversity in areas that have been understudied to fully understand global and endemic diversity. This study was completed as part of a larger algal biodiversity study of the soil biocrusts of San Nicholas Island, California, USA. Among the taxa isolated were several new species in three genera (Atlanticothrix, Pycnacronema, and Konicacronema) which were described from, and previously restricted to, Brazil. New taxa are described herein using a polyphasic approach to cyanobacterial taxonomy that considers morphological, molecular, ecological, and biogeographical factors. Morphological data corroborated by molecular analysis including sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, and the associated 16S-23S ITS rRNA region was used to delineate three new species of Atlanticothrix, two species of Pycnacronema, and one species of Konicacronema. The overlap of genera from San Nicolas Island and Brazil suggests that cyanobacterial genera may be widely distributed across global hemispheres, whereas the presence of distinct lineages may indicate that this is not true at the species level. Our data suggest that based upon global wind patterns, cyanobacteria in both Northern and Southern hemispheres of the Americas may have a more recent common ancestor in Northern Africa, but this common ancestry is distant enough that speciation has occurred since transatlantic dispersal.

QAVAN: Query-answering approach for actionable numerical relationships over Knowledge Graphs

Semantic Web (SW) technologies are suitable to represent taxonomic knowledge in Knowledge Graphs (KG). However, cases that do not fall in this category such as numerical relationships (e.g., algebraic operations or unit conversion) that can enrich the KGs data are poorly represented. Current approaches mostly trigger these relationships in a materialised fashion (i.e., perform all the relationships in advance), which leads to storage and updating problems. Besides, these relationships are often not represented using linked data formats ignoring the FAIR and LOD guidelines, which leads to issues of interoperability, reproducibility and adoption. In this work, we propose QAVAN, a query-answering approach that computes efficiently only the necessary numerical relationships relevant to answer to a given query. QAVAN exploits SW technologies such as SHACL for representing and computing these relationships while plays in favour of FAIR and LOD principles. We evaluated and compared QAVAN against a materialised approach using two real datasets extracted from two very well-known data sources, DBpedia and MeteoFrance. Results expose the numerous benefits of QAVAN in terms of execution time, memory usage, and disk space in different scenarios for example against big datasets. We also evaluated two QAVAN extensions, the nested numerical relationships and the inference services. Our results show that these extensions allow to apply the numerical relationships for a greater number of instances to provide more query results.

Most soil and litter arthropods are unidentifiable based on current DNA barcode reference libraries.

We are far from knowing all species living on the planet. Understanding biodiversity is demanding and requires time and expertise. Most groups are understudied given problems of identifying and delimiting species. DNA barcoding emerged to overcome some of the difficulties in identifying species. Its limitations derive from incomplete taxonomic knowledge and the lack of comprehensive DNA barcode libraries for so many taxonomic groups. Here, we evaluate how useful barcoding is for identifying arthropods from highly diverse leaf litter communities in the southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). We used 3 reference databases and several automated classification methods on a data set including several arthropod groups. Acari, Araneae, Collembola, Coleoptera, Diptera, and Hymenoptera were well represented, showing different performances across methods and databases. Spiders performed the best, with correct identification rates to species and genus levels of ~50% across databases. Springtails performed poorly, no barcodes were identified to species or genus. Other groups showed poor to mediocre performance, from around 3% (mites) to 20% (beetles) correctly identified barcodes to species, but also with some false identifications. In general, BOLD-based identification offered the best identification results but, in all cases except spiders, performance is poor, with less than a fifth of specimens correctly identified to genus or species. Our results indicate that the soil arthropod fauna is still insufficiently documented, with many species unrepresented in DNA barcode libraries. More effort toward integrative taxonomic characterization is needed to complete our reference libraries before we can rely on DNA barcoding as a universally applicable identification method.

Can immature stages be ignored in studies of forest leaf litter arthropod diversity? A test using Oxford Nanopore DNA barcoding

Abstract Forest soil and leaf litter support diverse arthropod mesofauna for which diversity dynamics is challenging to study due to the high number of species and specimens, small body size and limited taxonomic knowledge. Immature stages (larvae) are even harder to identify than adults, as their morphology is largely unknown. Therefore, larvae are often ignored, even though they may form a substantial proportion of specimens collected, are less mobile than adults and their exclusion may provide an incomplete diversity profile. Here, we use Oxford Nanopore DNA barcoding to investigate whether the inclusion of larvae provides a more complete taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity profiles in leaf litter beetles (Coleoptera) from a subtropical forest in Taiwan. Our results indicate that larvae represent up to 38% of beetle specimens per sample, but most of them belong to 2–3 common species. Larvae of most beetle species are rarely collected repeatedly or in multiple specimens, possibly due to special habitat requirements or high seasonality. Taxonomic, phylogenetic and incidence‐based functional diversity measures were not affected by the exclusion of larvae in the Staphylinidae dataset but were strongly biased in all‐beetle dataset, especially when only common or abundant species were considered. Taxonomic beta diversity was not affected by the omission of larvae. Our results indicate that immature stages may be omitted in ecological studies of arthropods in case both adults and larvae co‐occur in the same habitat, and the sites are sampled repeatedly. Caution is needed (1) in groups in which larvae and adults do not inhabit the same environment or strongly differ in biology, (2) when rare species are omitted or (3) when functional diversity is calculated from abundance data.

Exploring the known chemical space of the plant kingdom: insights into taxonomic patterns, knowledge gaps, and bioactive regions

Plants are one of the primary sources of natural products for drug development. However, despite centuries of research, only a limited region of the phytochemical space has been studied. To understand the scope of what is explored versus unexplored in the phytochemical space, we begin by reconstructing the known chemical space of the plant kingdom, mapping the distribution of secondary metabolites, chemical classes, and plants traditionally used for medicinal purposes (i.e., medicinal plants) across various levels of the taxonomy. We identify hotspot taxonomic clades occupied by a large proportion of medicinal plants and characterized secondary metabolites, as well as clades requiring further characterization with regard to their chemical composition. In a complementary analysis, we build a chemotaxonomy which has a high level of concordance with the taxonomy at the genus level, highlighting the close relationship between chemical profiles and evolutionary relationships within the plant kingdom. Next, we delve into regions of the phytochemical space with known bioactivity that have been used in modern drug discovery. While we find that the vast majority of approved drugs from phytochemicals are derived from known medicinal plants, we also show that medicinal and non-medicinal plants do not occupy distinct regions of the known phytochemical landscape and their phytochemicals exhibit properties similar to bioactive compounds. Moreover, we also reveal that only a few thousand phytochemicals have been screened for bioactivity and that there are hundreds of known bioactive compounds present in both medicinal and non-medicinal plants, suggesting that non-medicinal plants also have potential therapeutic applications. Overall, these results support the hypothesis that there are many plants with medicinal properties awaiting discovery.

The importance of taxonomy for determining species distribution: a case study using the disjunct lichen Brodoa oroarctica

Species-focused conservation requires a thorough understanding of species’ distributions. Delineating a species’ distribution requires taxonomic knowledge and adequate occurrence data. For plants and fungi, herbaria represent a valuable source of large-scale occurrence data. Advances in digital technology mean that data from many herbarium collections worldwide are now easily accessible. However, species concepts can change over time requiring herbarium records to be re-examined and databases updated, which does not always occur synchronously across all collections. Therefore, non-critical use of these data can promote inaccuracies in understanding species distributions. Taxonomic revisions are common in understudied organisms, such as lichens. Here, we illustrate how changing taxonomy and non-critical acceptance of online data affects our understanding of disjunct distributions, using the lichen Brodoa oroarctica (Krog) Goward as an example. Defining the distribution of the arctic lichen B. oroarctica is confounded by changing taxonomy and uncertainty of herbarium records that pre-date taxonomic revisions. We review the distribution of this species in the literature and in aggregate occurrence databases, and verify herbarium specimens that represent disjunct occurrences in eastern North America to present an updated account of its distribution and frequency in eastern North America. We show that knowledge of changing species taxonomy is essential to depicting accurate species distributions.

Surrounded by Great Lakes: Assessing the ichthyological diversity of Northern Zambian drainage systems

In contrast to the fish diversity of the African Great Lakes, in particular cichlid fishes, the ichthyofauna of most river systems in Africa is poorly documented and remains critically understudied. Here we focus on the fish fauna of Northern Zambia, a region that is located between two African Great Lakes and covers the contact zones between three major drainage systems: the Zambezi drainage system, the Congo drainage system, including the Lake Tanganyika catchment and the Lake Rukwa drainage system. Our study contributes to the taxonomic knowledge of this region by providing DNA barcodes (COI) of 315 newly acquired museum voucher specimens representing approximately 125 species, together with distribution details of these species as well as those for which no barcodes have been obtained during this study. The barcoding efforts focused mainly on the fish fauna of the Luangwa River and its tributaries, the Lufubu River, the Upper Chambeshi, the Saisi River and included some Lake Malawi affluents as well. In total, 147 fish species, distributed over 16 families and 46 genera, were recorded from 38 sampling locations. A large proportion of these species appear to be undescribed. This is best exemplified by the fish fauna of the Lufubu River, where of the 37 species recorded, 25 represent candidate species putatively endemic to the system. This first step to establish a DNA barcode library for the freshwater fish diversity of Northern Zambia will serve as valuable tool for the taxonomic inventory of this region as well as for future conservation actions.

Antibacterial activity and GC MS analysis of Notothylas indica Kashyap

Bryophytes form a diverse assemblage of embryophytes that lack vascular tissue. They are small in size but are the second largest group of terrestrial plants after angiosperms. They are the least studied group among plants mainly due to small size, less availability of biomass, lack of taxonomic knowledge and difficulty in identifying taxa. Bryophytes are poikilohydric forms and maintain a stable microclimate that support growth of small animals and microbes. They prevent soil erosion and maintain soil moisture. Bryophytes have several economic importance. They are now recognized to be store house of biochemicals having many bioactivities. Genus Notothylas belongs to the group Anthocerotophyta and have over 23 accepted species, with the highest species diversity in the Indian subcontinent. The present study deals with phytochemical extraction from dried biomass of N. indica, assessing the antibacterial activity of extract and GC MS analysis to elucidate the volatile compounds that may offer the antibacterial effect. The plant was powdered and solvent extracted sequentially using soxhlet extraction apparatus with petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, methanol and water. Among the extracts, methanol fraction showed antibacterial activity against all the tested strains of bacteria with highest zone of inhibition 16 mm against Bacillus subtilis. GC–MS analysis revealed the presence of over 215 volatile compounds with about 12 having reported antibacterial activities. Thiophene derivatives are common antibacterial agents and in N. indica, six derivatives of thiophene were seen. Other compounds with known antimicrobial activity include (z)-2 methyl-2-butenoic acid methyl ester, 2,4-pentaedione, Ethanone 1-(2-hydroxy-5-methylphenyl)-, Tridecanal, 2(5H)-Furanone-5 methyl-, hexadecanoic acid methyl ester and 2 pentadecanone. There may be more compounds that are potential antimicrobial agents, many might be new to plant world. Further work include isolation and purification of antimicrobial compounds and confirmation of its origin from bryophyte.

Note the hierarchy: Taxonomy-guided prototype for few-shot named entity recognition

Few-shot named entity recognition (FS-NER) aims at identifying entities from plain text via a handful of samples. Many efforts based on prototype learning hardly model the hierarchy in the entity types from global perspectives, which tends to cause ambiguous prototypes. To tackle the challenge and make full use of fine-grained taxonomy information, we propose a novel approach called Taxonomy-Guided Prototype (TaGuProto) for FS-NER, a decomposed framework which can automatically extract class-agnostic entity spans, explicitly incorporate taxonomic hierarchy information into prototype representations and effectively bridge the representation gaps between entity spans and taxonomic description embeddings. In addition, the taxonomy knowledge provides instructive supervision signals for discrepant and discriminative entity representations. Extensive experimental results on six public datasets demonstrate that our model achieves significant and consistent improvement, with TaGuProto achieving an average performance gain of 8.7% over the previous best model (SDNet).

Four new species of anthuroids (Peracarida: Isopoda) from the temperate-tropical transition zone of the western coast of Baja California Peninsula, Mexico.

In the Baja California Peninsula (BCP), the anthuroid fauna is little known, with six species reported from the western part. This study increases the taxonomic knowledge of Anthuroidea in a coastal lagoon in the temperate-tropical climate transition oceanic zone in the Mexican Pacific. A total of 18 samples were collected, fixed in 5% formalin, and preserved in 70% alcohol. Four new species were described, belonging to two families: Anthuridae, Amakusanthura lucinae sp. nov., Cortezura lluchbeldai sp. nov., Mesanthura cocoae sp. nov., and Paranthuridae, Colanthura guerreronegroensis sp. nov. This is an important contribution to the knowledge of the anthuroids of Mexico, but it also clearly shows the lack of knowledge of the group, as has been demonstrated in other taxonomic groups.

Novelties in the genus Acalypha (Euphorbiaceae, Acalyphoideae): two new species from northern Madagascar

Background and aims – Taxonomic knowledge of Acalypha in the Western Indian Ocean Region (WIOR; including Madagascar, Comoros, Mascarenes, Seychelles, and the Scattered Islands) has increased greatly in the last few years. This paper is the latest in a series of publications that have contributed to create a robust taxonomic framework for Acalypha in this region. Material and methods – The descriptions and illustrations of the new species are based on herbarium specimens and on some field images. Descriptions were made following standard procedures. Maps was prepared using QGIS software and preliminary conservation assessments was made following IUCN guidelines and criteria. Key results – Two species of Acalypha from northern Madagascar are described as new to science: Acalypha bardotiana sp. nov., found on the Montagne des Français (Diana region), and Acalypha inaequibracteata sp. nov., found in the Binara forest (Sava region). Line drawings, field images, distribution maps, and a discussion of their morphological and phylogenetic affinities, as well as the preliminary conservation assessments are provided.

Contribution to Taxonomic Knowledge of Crepis dioritica (Asteraceae): A Threatened Endemic Species in Türkiye

Aim of study: Crepis dioritica Schott & Kotschy ex Boiss. (=Crepis albiflora Babcock) is a threatened endemic species in Türkiye. The aim of this study is to contribute taxonomic knowledge of this species, and to reasses of its IUCN Red List category.
 Area of study: Bolkar Mountains (Niğde) and Irano-Turanian region. 
 Material and methods: The comprehensive floristic studies in type locality of C. dioritica in Bolkar Mountains were carried out. Besides, the specimens previously collected from the type locality and Irano-Turanian region of the species were examined in detail.
 Main results: The typification of the name Crepis dioritica erronously cited as holotype was corrected to lectotype herein. Besides, the IUCN category of the species was reassesed as VU (vulnerable), and its distribution pattern was given in detail for the first time. 
 Highlights: The data obtained from this study can be used for nomenclature and taxonomy of C. dioritica.

Knowledge Graph Dataset for Semantic Enrichment of Picture Description in NAPS Database

This data description introduces a comprehensive knowledge graph (KG) dataset with detailed information about the relevant high-level semantics of visual stimuli used to induce emotional states stored in the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) repository. The dataset contains 6808 systematically manually assigned annotations for 1356 NAPS pictures in 5 categories, linked to WordNet synsets and Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) concepts presented in a tabular format. Both knowledge databases provide an extensive and supervised taxonomy glossary suitable for describing picture semantics. The annotation glossary consists of 935 WordNet and 513 SUMO entities. A description of the dataset and the specific processes used to collect, process, review, and publish the dataset as open data are also provided. This dataset is unique in that it captures complex objects, scenes, actions, and the overall context of emotional stimuli with knowledge taxonomies at a high level of quality. It provides a valuable resource for a variety of projects investigating emotion, attention, and related phenomena. In addition, researchers can use this dataset to explore the relationship between emotions and high-level semantics or to develop data-retrieval tools to generate personalized stimuli sequences. The dataset is freely available in common formats (Excel and CSV).

Non-destructive insect metabarcoding for surveillance and biosecurity in citrus orchards: recording the good, the bad and the psyllids.

The Australian citrus industry remains one of the few in the world to be unaffected by the African and the Asian citrus psyllids, Trioza erytreae Del Guercio and Diaphorina citri Kuwayama, respectively, and the diseases their vectored bacteria can cause. Surveillance, early detection, and strict quarantine measures are therefore fundamental to safeguard Australian citrus. However, long-term targeted surveillance for exotic citrus pests can be a time-consuming and expensive activity, often relying on manually screening large numbers of trap samples and morphological identification of specimens, which requires a high level of taxonomic knowledge. Here we evaluated the use of non-destructive insect metabarcoding for exotic pest surveillance in citrus orchards. We conducted an 11-week field trial, between the months of December and February, at a horticultural research farm (SuniTAFE Smart Farm) in the Northwest of Victoria, Australia, and processed more than 250 samples collected from three types of invertebrate traps across four sites. The whole-community metabarcoding data enabled comparisons between different trapping methods, demonstrated the spatial variation of insect diversity across the same orchard, and highlighted how comprehensive assessment of insect biodiversity requires use of multiple complimentary trapping methods. In addition to revealing the diversity of native psyllid species in citrus orchards, the non-targeted metabarcoding approach identified a diversity of other pest and beneficial insects and arachnids within the trap bycatch, and recorded the presence of the triozid Casuarinicola cf warrigalensis for the first time in Victoria. Ultimately, this work highlights how a non-targeted surveillance approach for insect monitoring coupled with non-destructive DNA metabarcoding can provide accurate and high-throughput species identification for biosecurity and biodiversity monitoring.

Capturing and Using Taxonomic Knowledge for Species Identification

The skills and knowledge needed to recognize and classify taxa are becoming increasingly scarce in the scientific community, resulting in a “taxonomic impediment”, where such knowledge is gradually disappearing (Engel et al. 2021). At the same time, it is clear that these skills are strongly needed in biodiversity monitoring for management and conservation, especially when carried out by citizen scientists. Formalizing the knowledge required to distinguish taxa from one another in the form of open digital identification keys is one way of making such knowledge more findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) for professional and amateur observers of biodiversity. Experience working with taxonomic experts to capture taxonomic knowledge in a tabular, multiple access format has proven that important nuances in taxonomic knowledge cannot be captured in a tabular format in a practical manner. Features like taxonomic hierarchy, rich metadata, formalized geographical scope, multilingualism, numerical ranges, logical premises, and links to external services are all much needed improvements of digital identification keys. However, these are complex to capture in a tabular format, defeating the benefits of its general simplicity. To address this, we have developed Clavis, an open format for identification keys written in JavaScript Object Notation (Koch et al. 2022). The goal is to create an ecosystem where different implementations and mappings of the Clavis format can serve the needs of various users and institutions, while maintaining knowledge exchange. Having a versatile format as a foundation, a crucial next step was to offer experts a tool to edit and test identification keys, and provide end-users with a tool to access this information. In this presentation, we show the Clavis format itself, as well as an online editing tool and a end-user interface, available on clavis.no. Providing a more advanced use case, we demonstrate how we implement Clavis in tandem with computer vision, providing users with a single tool to quickly and reliably identify taxa using different technologies.

New species and records in Phrynidius Lacordaire (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Lamiinae).

Phrynidius Lacordaire, 1869, a genus of Mesoamerican distribution, is a group whose original taxonomic knowledge was generally limited, mainly due to the original descriptions not allowing for the adequate determination of its species. Recently, this knowledge was increased with the description of new species and the publication of a key to separate them. However, this knowledge is still incomplete, and there remain undescribed species deposited in different entomological collections. In this study, we update the taxonomic and distributional knowledge of the genus, and provide a new key to separate the species. Seven new species are described: P. poriferus sp. nov., from Honduras; P. skillmani sp. nov., from Guatemala; P. obrieni sp. nov., from Honduras; P. wibmeri sp. nov., from Mexico; P. pallifemoralis sp. nov., from Mexico; P. oaxacanensis sp. nov., from Mexico; P. guatemalensis sp. nov., from Guatemala. Phrynidius echinus Bates, 1880 is briefly redescribed and reported for the first time for the Guatemalan department of El Progreso. Phrynidius armatus Linsley, 1933 is excluded from the Nicaraguan fauna. Additionally, two new country records are reported: Phrynidius guifarroi Santos-Silva, Van Roie & Jocqu, 2021, from Guatemala; and P. nayaritensis Heffern, Nascimento & Santos-Silva, 2018, from Honduras.

Relation of the forest fragment matrix and the variation of acoustic signals of three species of Arremon (Passeriformes: Oscines)

Species communication systems are sensitive to habitat and act as indicators of anthropogenic environmental degradation, as they function as an early warning of the effects of fragmentation on avifauna in short periods. In this way, the study of vocal patterns helps in understanding geographic variations and cultural evolution of populations. In this study we evaluated 270 recordings of three species belonging to the genus Arremon, which occur in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: Arremon flavirostris, Arremon semitorquatus and Arremon taciturnus; with the aim of identifying changes in vocal characteristics between populations of the same species and verifying the relationship with the type of matrix surrounding the forest fragment. We found significant intraspecific differences in the vocal parameters of the three analyzed species. Thus, this study contributes to the taxonomic knowledge of the Arremon complex and provides information about the diversity of vocal signals of Brazilian species.

An accurate, efficient, and economical identification technology for black twig borer based on species-specific cytochrome C oxidase subunit I PCR assay.

Xylosandrus compactus (Eichhoff) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae) is a worldwide invasive species that causes huge economic loss and environmental damage in many countries. Traditional morphological characteristics make it hard to identify scolytines due to their tiny size. Besides, the intercepted insect samples are incomplete, and the limitation of insect (larvae and pupae) morphology makes morphological identification more difficult. The majority of the damage is caused by adults and fungi that serve as nutrition for their larvae. They destroy plant trunks, branches, and twigs, affecting plant transport tissues in both weak and healthy plants. An accurate, efficient, and economical molecular identification technique for X. compactus not restricted by professional taxonomic knowledge is necessary. In the present study, a molecular identification tool based on the mitochondrial DNA gene, cytochrome C oxidase subunit I (COI) was developed. A species-specific COI (SS-COI) PCR assay was designed to identify X. compactus regardless of the developmental stage. Twelve scolytines commonly found in eastern China, namely Xylosandrus compactus, X. crassiusculus, X. discolor, X. germanus, X. borealis, X. amputates, X. eupatorii, X. mancus, Xyleborinus saxesenii, Euwallacea interjectus, E. fornicatus, and Acanthotomicus suncei, were included in the study. Additionally, specimens of X. compactus from 17 different areas in China, as well as a specimen collected from the United Stated, were also analyzed. Results demonstrated the accuracy and high efficiency of the assay, regardless of the developmental stage or the type of specimen. These features provide a good application prospect for fundamental departments and can be used to prevent the harmful consequences of the spread of X. compactus.

Seed morphology of Hypericum(Hypericaceae)in China and its taxonomic significance.

The seed morphology of 40 taxa within the genus Hypericum (Hypericaceae) from China, representing 9 sections of the genus, was examined using both Light and Scanning Electron Microscopy to evaluate the taxonomic relevance of macro- and micro-morphological features. Details articulating variation in seed size, color, shape, appendages, and seed coat ornamentation are described, illustrated, and compared, and their taxonomic importance is discussed. Seeds were generally brown in color and cylindric-ellipsoid to prolonged cylindric in shape. Seed size displayed wide variation, ranging from 0.37-1.91 mm in length and 0.12-0.75 mm in width. Seed appendages were observed as a characteristic morphological feature. Seed surface ornamentation has high phenotypic plasticity, and four types (reticulate, foveolate, papillose, and ribbed) can be recognized. In general, seed color and shape have limited taxonomic significance. However, some other features represent informative characters that can be used efficiently in distinguishing the studied taxa at the section and/or species levels. The findings illustrate that considerable taxonomic knowledge can be obtained by investigating the seed features of Hypericum, and the use of Scanning Electron Microscopy can reveal inconspicuous morphological affinities among species and play a role in taxonomic and systematic studies of the genus Hypericum. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Macro- and micro-morphological features of seeds of 40 Hypericum taxa from China were examined using Light and Scanning Electron Microscopy, providing the first broad study regarding seed morphology for Hypericum from China. Details and variations of seed size, shape, color, surface ornamentation, and appendages are fully presented. Seed features and their variation have important taxonomic significance at the section and/or species levels within Hypericum.