Rhododendron subgenus Vireya
| Rhododendron sect. Vireya | |
|---|---|
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| Rhododendron javanicum | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Asterids |
| Order: | Ericales |
| Family: | Ericaceae |
| Subfamily: | Ericoideae |
| Genus: | Rhododendron |
| Subgenus: | Rhododendron |
| Section: |
Vireya (Blume) H.F.Copel. |
| Type species | |
|
Rhododendron javanicum (Blume) Benn. |
|
| Subsections | |
|
See text |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Schistanthe Schltr. |
|
See text
Schistanthe Schltr.
Rhododendron section Vireya (vireyas) is a tropical group of Rhododendron species, numbering about 300 in all. Vireyas are native to southeastern Asia and range from Thailand to Australia.
Vireya are morphologically diverse, and characterised by seeds with tailed appendages, the presence of leaf idioblasts and capsule valves which twist upon opening.
The formal description (Craven 2008) is: Scales sessile or sometimes stalked, lobed to deeply incised or sometimes entire; corolla campanulate, trumpet-like, salver-shaped, tubular or funnel-shaped; stamens (5–)10(–16), exserted to included, staminal filaments glabrous or hairy from the base; capsule valves twisting after dehiscence; seeds with a distinct tail at each end.
Vireya is the largest of the three sections constituting subgenus Rhododendron, and includes about a third of all Rhododendron species. The exact classification has varied among various authors, some authors considering Vireya to be a separate subgenus rather than as here, a section of the Rhododendron subgenus. It has been suggested that taxonomic nomenclatural correctness requires changing the name of the Vireya rhododendrons to Schistanthe. Thus the term 'Vireya' has been used to refer to Section Vireya (Sleumer), Subgenus Vireya, Section Schistanthe, or the majority of the Malesian tropical rhododendrons. (Fayaz). Goetsch (2011) gives the number of species as 320, and the total taxa including subspecies, forms and varieties as 380.
The section has traditionally been considered to consist of seven subsections based on morphology, although Brown et al, using phylogenetic analysis found a lack of support for monophyly of these subsections, and rather a series of clades based on geographical distribution:
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