NOMENCLATURE AND TYPIFICATION OF THE GENERA OF RUBIACEAE‐NAUCLEEAE AND A PROPOSAL TO CONSERVE THE GENERIC NAME NAUCLEA L

The revision of the Naucleeae for the Malesian flora entailed, besides a taxonomic survey, nomenclatural evaluation and typification of the genera. Unfortunately there has been a great deal of confusion, since the time of Linnaeus's Species Plantarum, as the material then available was extremely scrappy and the nature of the head-like inflorescences in this group were not properly understood. Hence these plants were all lumped under a few generic names such as Nauclea, Cephalanthus, and Sarcocephalus. Merrill correctly pointed out in 1917 that the evaluation by Haviland (1897) in his monograph of Malesian Naucleeae was incorrect; but, again, a closer study of the conclusions reached by Merrill, who was mainly concerned with the nomenclature and systematics of Nauclea versus Sarcocephalus, cannot be fully approved. The situation is extremely complicated. I have tried to cover all generic names involved and have reached the conclusion that