Analyses moléculaires
Marinho, L., Cai, L., Duan, X., Ruhfel, B., Fiaschi, P., Amorim, A., Van den berg, C. & Davis, C. 2019. Plastomes resolve generic limits within tribe Clusieae (Clusiaceae) and reveal the new genus Arawakia. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 134: 142-151.

 

Description originale
Marinho, L., Cai, L., Duan, X., Ruhfel, B., Fiaschi, P., Amorim, A., Van den berg, C. & Davis, C. 2019. Plastomes resolve generic limits within tribe Clusieae (Clusiaceae) and reveal the new genus Arawakia. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 134: 142-151.

 

Date de publication : Molec. Phylogen. Evol., 134: 146[-148, fig. 4]. 2019 [08/02/2019, fide p. 142].

Distribution : Essentiellement Amazonie occidentale, Yungas, Choco, sud de l'Amérique centrale (jusqu'au sud du Nicaragua); ailleurs données exrêmement dispersées: nord de la Colombie et du Venezuela (chaîne côtière), plateau des Guyanes (région du Roraima [Bolívar vénézuélien & Guyana], NE Guyane française) et Amazonie centrale (bas Rio Negro) (GBIF).

Etymologie : "The genus honours the Arawak, a group of American Indians originally from the Greater Antilles to South America."

Taxonomie : D'après Molino et al. (Adansonia, 44(26): 439. 13/12/2022): "Marinho et al. (2019) segregated the “T. weddelliana complex” in a new genus, Arawakia, on the basis of plastid and nuclear ITS genome analyses of 30 species out of the c. 500 that form the tribe Clusieae. However, their splitting of Tovomita into two main groups (one being Arawakia) appears much less supported (85-86 bootstrap values and 0.51-0.66 posterior probabilities) than the monophyly of other genera (99-100 bootstrap/0.85-1 pp). Further, two of the five diagnostic characters that Marinho et al. (2019) claim to distinguish Arawakia from Tovomita do not hold: - white latex, said to be characteristic of Arawakia (vs yellow in Tovomita), has been observed by the first two authors of the present publication in T. umbellata (J.-F. Molino 731 and J.-F. Molino 936, CAY), T. schomburgkii (D. Sabatier & M.-F. Prévost 1345, D. Sabatier & M.-F. Prévost 3354 and D. Sabatier & J.-F. Molino 4679, CAY) and T. caloneura (D. Sabatier & M.-F. Prévost 1363, CAY); - the sepals, said to be always persistant and adpressed on fruit in Arawakia (vs not adpressed in Tovomita) are actually not adpressed on fruits of the types of A. lingulata, A. macrocarpa and A. rileyi. The remaining characters Marinho et al. (2019) present do not warrant the creation of a new genus: two are purely vegetative (leaf shape and colour of the interpetiolar line, black in Arawakia vs not black in Tovomita), and the third is epicarp colour (red in Arawakia vs green to brown in Tovomita)."
Nous pensons au contraire que les arguments de Marinho et al. (2019) sont suffisamment étayés et forts pour ne pas laisser d'autre alternative que de reconnaître le genre Arawakia L.Marinho 2019, par ailleurs immédiatement distinct végétativement de Tovomita Aubl. 1775.

Type : Tovomita weddelliana Planch. & Triana 1860 [≡ Arawakia weddeliana (Planch. & Triana) L.Marinho 2019] (Bolivie septentrionale, Larecaja, vallée de Tipuani, 1851, Weddell s.n.).