Distribution : "Thirty-seven species; southern Mexico and the West Indies to southern Brazil and NE Argentina. Most species of the genus are endemic in mid- to high-elevation areas of the eastern Brazilian Atlantic Forests (12 spp.), the campos rupestres highlands of the Brazilian Cerrado (7 spp.), and the northwestern Brazilian Amazon Forests in the border areas among Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia (5 spp.). About two-thirds of the species of
Didymopanax are forest-dwellers, whereas the remaining occur mostly in savannas. The genus is poorly represented in seasonally dry tropical forests, where only a single widespread species is found (viz.,
S. morototoni; see Fiaschi & Plunkett, 2018)." (Fiaschi
et al.
2020)
Taxonomie : "
Didymopanax was recognized as a distinct genus by many authors until the second half of the twentieth century (e.g.,Marchal, 1878, 1889; Harms, 1894–1897, 1931; Taubert, 1893; Sampaio, 1916), based largely on its bicarpellate gynoecia, compared to those of
Schefflera, which typically have five or more carpels. Frodin (1975, 1986, 1989, 1993) recognized that this distinction was artificial and noted that several species with five to six carpels were otherwise more closely related to
Didymopanax. On that basis, and as part of his overall expansion of the definition of
Schefflera, he suggested that
Didymopanax be treated in synonymy under
Schefflera. Since that time, the names of 18 new species from this clade have been published in
Schefflera (Maguire et al., 1984; Steyermark, 1988; Fiaschi 2004; Fiaschi & Pirani, 2005a, 2005b; Fiaschi & Frodin, 2006; Fiaschi et al., 2008; Fiaschi & Plunkett, 2016), and this clade was treated as an informal group within
Schefflera in the recently published taxonomic revision (Fiaschi & Plunkett, 2018). In addition to having mostly bicarpellate ovaries, species of
Didymopanax can also be recognized by the presence of sericeous or villous indumentum, leaves with a (usually) short and apically bifid stipule, and flowers that are usually pedicellate, with the petals free and the stamens usually shorter than the anthers (Fiaschi & Plunkett, 2018)." (Fiaschi
et al.
2020)