Neoshirakia, a new name for Shirakia Hurus. (Euphorbiaceae)

Shirakia (Euphorbiaceae) was described by Hurusawa (1954) with three species. It was named after Croton shiraki, a nomen nudum used by Siebold & Zuccarini (1843) for the species currently known as S. japonica (Siebold & Zucc.) Hurus. Kruijt (1996) transferred five additional species to Shirakia. Esser et al. (1998) showed that S. japonica, the type, differs in several characters from the remainder of the genus. In a phylogenetic analysis they concluded that all additional species have to be removed to other genera ( Shirakiopsis Esser ined., Triadica Lour.), with Shirakia remaining as a monotypic genus endemic to Japan and adjacent East Asia. The name, however, is a later homonym of Shirakia S. Kawasaki, a fern fossil described in 1934 from South Korea. This information is included in the WWW version of the Index Nominum Genericorum (Farr & Zijlstra, 1996 and onward). Because this earlier homonym was published in a publication of very restricted distribution, it was overlooked by recent workers (Kruijt, 1996; Esser et al., 1998). Gea Zijlstra and John Wiersema kindly confirmed that a new name is still necessary for Shirakia Hurus., and this is provided herewith.