Aphanomyrtus Miquel and Pseudoeugenia Scortechini

In 1898 Koorders and Valeton ¹) considered the three species of Miquel’s genus then known as Aphanomyrtus rostrata Miq. Sumatra (and Java?), A. octandra Koord. & Val., Java, and A. camphorata Val., the latter described from a plant cultivated in the Botanical Garden at Buitenzorg, its origin unknown. The three recognized species were well illustrated. They gave an amplified description of Miquel’s genus, calling attention to the fact that it had been erroneously reduced to the very different Baeckea. They did not then realize that the genus Pseudoeugenia Soort. (1885) was a synonym of Aphanomyrtus Miq. Nine years later Valeton ²) again considered the genus, having recognized the identity of Pseudoeugenia Scortechini (1885) with Aphanomyrthus Miquel (1855), and making the reduction of the former. He recognized four species, A. rostrata Miq. (Pseudoeugenia singaporensis King), Sumatra, Banka, and the Malay Peninsula; A. tetraquetra (Miq.) Val. (Jambosa tetraquetra Miq., Aphanomyrtus octandra Koord. & Val., A. octandra var. tetraquetra Koord. & Val.); A. skiophila (Duthie) Val. (Eugenia skiophila Duthie, Pseudoeugenia perakiana Soort.), Penang and the Malay Peninsula, but of which he saw no material (credited also to Sumatra by Ridley); and A. camphorata Val. cultivated at Buitenzorg, Java. Valeton reconsidered the genus in 1907 because of his belief that the Koorders & Valeton paper of 1898 was not generally available to botanists, for in the meantime King (1901) had redescribed Aphanomyrtus rostrata Miq. as Pseudoeugenia singaporensis. Both papers were apparently overlooked by Ridley, for in his Flora of the Malay Peninsula (1922) he still retained the two Malay Peninsula species under Pseudoeugenia, as P. perakiana Scort. and P. singaporensis King; and in 1927 described a third species, P. tenuifolia Ridl., from the Peninsula. In the meantime Greves had recognized Miquel’s genus and described A. Forbesii Greves from Sumatra, which seems to be a synonym of A. tetraquetra (Miq.) Val., and Lauterbach described another species, Aphanomyrtus alata Lauterb., from New Guinea; the last species probably belongs in some other genus.