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Reposted by Brecht Verstraete

Plant Ecology and Evolution @plecevo.bsky.social · Jun 30

Since its inception in 2010, Plant Ecology and Evolution has published exactly 600 papers about plant ecology, systematics, and evolution. Will your research be next?

plecevo.eu

Plant Ecology and Evolution

Plant Ecology and Evolution is a diamond open access journal that publishes papers about ecology, phylogenetics, and systematics of all plant groups (including algae, fungi, and myxomycetes), also cov...

plecevo.eu

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

The most common way of naming is referring to a plant feature, often reproductive characters. Eponyms, chiefly commemorating men, have always been common and even became dominant in the last two decades.

Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

Almost half of the names appeared in the 19th century, but the proportion of accepted names increased over time. The average number of new generic names is 5.05 per year.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

Europeans authored the vast majority of names and, within Europe, it is concentrated in France, the UK, and Germany.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

A mere 1.80% of the generic names were published by female authors only.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

Every letter of the alphabet has been used but P is the most popular letter to start a genus with, while Q has only been used once. These are also other most and least used first letters in the English language.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

Generic names are between 3 and 20 letters long and the distribution is a displaced Poisson distribution. The median length is 10 letters. This is the same for words in European languages.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

Rubiaceae has 1386 generic names, of which 615 are accepted and contain 14,266 species. This makes it the fifth-largest angiosperm family.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jun 16

I present the first ever survey of all generic names in the Rubiaceae plant family.

➡️ doi.org/10.1002/tax....

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · May 5

An interesting story about the name of the genus Anthospermum in Rubiaceae. doi.org/10.38201/abc...

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Feb 14

Read the full story in my latest paper: doi.org/10.3897/phyt...

Caelospermum versus Coelospermum in Rubiaceae (Gentianales): their etymologies explained

Caelospermum is the original spelling of the generic name, as it appeared in the protologue, but in literature and online databases, the variant spelling Coelospermum is often used. However, the confu...

doi.org

Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Feb 14

However, the Latin caelum can also mean "vault of heaven", referring to the celestial vault in ancient cosmology. So, the original spelling does refer to the arched seeds and is therefore correct.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Feb 14

The name is derived from Latin caelum (=heaven) and sperma (=seed) but this does not make much sense. So, taxonomists changed the spelling and etymology: from Greek koilos (=hollow), referring to the concave seeds.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Feb 14

Caelospermum is the original spelling of this #Rubiaceae genus but the variant Coelospermum is more often used. However, this is wrong...

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Feb 10

The genus name is Greek, from "gala" meaning "milk" and "anthos" meaning "flower", while the epithet is Latin for "snow-covered". So, a snow-covered white-flowering plant. A very obvious name. 😀

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jan 17

I have a paper in review about all generic names ever published in Rubiaceae. There are currently 615 accepted names with 14,266 species; 31% are monospecific genera and the median number of species is 4. Rubiaceae has lots of small genera.

Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jan 16

For Rubiaceae, the number of new generic names shows an almost linear increase and there is no indication that fewer generic names will be described in the future. The average increase of new genera is 5.05 genera per year.

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Reposted by Brecht Verstraete

Plant Ecology and Evolution @plecevo.bsky.social · Jan 10

Cinchona (#Rubiaceae) trees, containing quinine used as an antimalarial drug, have been cultivated in the DR Congo since the early 20th century. This study investigates the current context of Cinchona production in the eastern DRC.

➡️ doi.org/10.5091/plec...

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Jan 8

These works have now been added to the literature list on the #Rubiaceae website. If you ever find an online version of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin... let me know.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Nov 21

Hi, #Rubiaceae systematics here and editor in chief of @plecevo.bsky.social, a journal about ecology, phylogenetics, and systematics of all plant groups.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Nov 20

This needs verification but some sources say the national flower of Yemen is Coffea arabica, which is not native there.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Nov 19

The #Rubiaceae website contains the contact details of researchers working on this plant family, an up-to-date list of the systematic literature (3500+ references), and more. If you are interested in the #systematics and #evolution of this large family, please visit the website!

Rubiaceae

This website is dedicated to Rubiaceae, a cosmopolitan plant family of about 14,200 species, including the coffee shrubs.

sites.google.com

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Nov 1

8/8 Finally, a special thanks to my colleagues, Steven and Yves, for their friendship and company.

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Nov 1

7/8 The IX International Rubiaceae and Gentianales Conference will take place at Meise Botanic Garden around September or October 2026. Mark your calendars!

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Brecht Verstraete @brechtverstraete.bsky.social · Nov 1

6/8 The Rubiaceae plant family now has a #website with information about our experts, the conferences, literature, and more!
sites.google.com/view/rubiace...

Rubiaceae

sites.google.com