Revisional study of neotropical Beilschmiedia species (Lauraceae ...

Systematic position of the species in Lauraceae
As mentioned in the introduction, I treated the species studied here as Beilschmiedia
Nees (1833). Mez (1889) recognized Hufelandia distinct from Beilschmiedia mainly by
absence of an involucre (consisting of scales and subtending young inflorescences), but
Kostern1ans (1938) regarded the involucre character unimportant and combined Hufelandia
in Beilschmiedia. I thus far do not know if the involucre character is taxonomically important
and if the species with involucres are distinct enough to be separated from the neotropical
species. These questions should be answered after a careful study of palaeotropical
Beilschmiedia species. In a preliminary observation of the palaeotropical species, the
involucre character did not appear consistently and there were several species identified as
Beilschmiedia apparently congeneric to the neotropical species.
Beilschmiedia had long been placed in the tribe Perseae Nees based on thyrsoid
inflorescences without involucres. Kostermans ( 1957) regarded development or lack of
cupules as an in1portant character for the Lauraceae systen1atics, and placed Beilschmiedia
closed to the genera such as Endiandra, Mezilaurus, Potmneia, Persea and Phoebe.
Hutchinson (1964) regarded nUinber of anther cells as a more important character, and
placed Beilschtniedia in the tribe Apollonieae Hutchinson with such genera as Endiandra,
Aniba, Mezilaurus, Licaria and Endlicheria.
Richter (1981) published wood and bark anaton1y of Lauraceae, in which he found
three large groups of genera. He placed Beilschmiedia in a group with Endiandra, Potameia,
Triadodaphne, Cryptocarya and Ravensara (see the section wood anatomy). Cryptocarya has
the fruits completely enclosed by cupules and had been regarded a distantly related genus to
Beilschmiedia by Kostermans ( 1957).
VanderWerff & Richter (1996) reviewed these classifications and concluded
androecial characters such as number of anther cells were not suitable to use in a
classification of Lauraceae. Instead they proposed a classification based on the inflorescence
structure and the wood and bark anatomy. In their study Beilschmiedia was placed in the
tribe Cryptocaryeae Nees, distinguished by several characters such as paniculate
inflorescences with the ultimate divisions not strictly cymose, marginal parenchyma, nonseptate
fibers with conspicuously bordered pits, and exclusively simple vessel perforations
in secondary xylem.
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