Two new species of Centaurea sect. Cynaroides (Asteraceae) from western Iran, C. shehbazii Ranjbar & Negaresh and C. solitaria Ranjbar & Negaresh, are described. In addition, Centaurea aziziana is typified.

The species of Podocarpus L’Hér. ex Pers. (Podocarpaceae) occurring on the islands of the Caribbean (excluding Trinidad and Tobago) are revised. Nine species are recognised, of which eight are known to be endemic to the Caribbean Bioregion. None of the species have infraspecific taxa. Four occur on Cuba, two on Hispaniola, two on Jamaica, and one on Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles. Keys are provided to all the species and to the species of Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica. The distributions of all species are mapped and discussed in relation to the geological history of the region as well as the climate, especially rainfall. The names Podocarpus urbanii Pilg. and Podocarpus buchii var. latifolius Florin are lectotypified. Revised or new IUCN conservation assessments are proposed for Podocarpus angustifolius, P. aristulatus and P. victorinianus and the existing assessments are detailed for the remaining species.

Hoya lyi H.Lév. and H. yuennanensis Hand.-Mazz. (Apocynaceae – Asclepiadoideae), described at the beginning of the 20th century from specimens collected in South West China, have often been confused with each other and with H. carnosa R.Br. Currently Hoya yuennanensis is considered a synonym of H. lyi but after the selection of lectotypes and the comparison of extensive herbarium materials from the region two species are once again recognised. Emended descriptions and illustrations are provided. The recently described Hoya mekongensis M.G.Gilbert & P.T.Li is synonymised with H. yuennanensis.

A new species, Begonia rheophytica (§ Platycentrum), is described from northern Myanmar; it was initially confused with B. rhoephila, which is confined to Peninsular Malaysia. Comparison with other species with a rheophytic leaf shape is made. This new addition brings the number of currently recognised Begonia species in Myanmar to 73. An updated checklist of Myanmar Begonia species is also included.

A new species of Tinospora (Menispermaceae), Tinospora formanii Udayan & Pradeep from the Western Ghats of Thrissur district, Kerala, South India, is described and illustrated.

A new species of Neckeraceae, Neckera serrulatifolia Enroth & M.Ji, is described from Xizang (Tibet), China. It belongs in an Asian group of relatively robust, distinctly stipitate species with an obtuse leaf apex, relatively long costa and strongly incrassate-porose leaf cell walls, but differs from the other species by the combination of strongly complanate and undulate branch leaves, long leaf decurrencies, and serrulate margins at leaf base and at midleaf. The sporophytes remain unknown.

Three new species and one new subspecies of Stipa are described from the E Himalaya: S. jacquemontii subsp. chuzomica and S. bhutanica which appear to be endemic to Bhutan: S. milleri from Nepal, India (Sikkim) and Bhutan and S. rohmooiana from India (Sikkim).

A revision of the perennial Papaver L. sects. Pilosa Prantl and Pseudopilosa M. Popov ex Giinther is presented. Sect. Pilosa is considered to contain one species with five subspecies: P. pilosum Sibth. & Sm. subsp. pilosum, subsp. glabrisepalum Kadereit subsp. now, subsp. strictum (Boiss. & Balansa) Wendt ex Kadereit comb, et slat, now, subsp. spicatum (Boiss. & Balansa) Wendt ex Kadereit comb, et star, now and subsp. sparsipilosum (Boiss.) Kadereit comb, et stat. now The species is distributed in W Turkey. Sect. Pseudopilosa contains three species with five subspecies: P. rupifragum Boiss. & Reut., P. allanticum (Ball) Coss. subsp. atlanticum and subsp. mesatlanticum (Maire) Kadereit comb, et stat. now, P. lateritium K. Koch subsp. lateritium and subsp. inonanthum (Trautv.) Kadereit comb, et stat. now Whereas P. rupifragum and P. atlanticum are found in S Spain and NW Africa, P. lateritium grows in NE Anatolia, Georgia and the Caucasus Mts.

Jabal Aja’ in Saudi Arabia is an Important Plant Area (IPA) in the Arabian Peninsula. This paper describes the flora of the Jabal Aja’ area and provides an up-to-date botanical checklist. It designates the site as an IPA due to the presence of endemic and biogeographically relict species and the function of the site as a bioclimatic refuge. In addition to these conservation assessments, this study discusses socio-economic issues, threats to biodiversity conservation on Jabal Aja’, and the future research required to build upon these preliminary studies.

Hylodesmum H. Ohashi & R.R. Mill (Leguminosae or Fabaceae, tribe Desmodieae), based on Desmodium sect. Podocarpium Benth. (=D. subgen. Podocarpium (Benth.) H. Ohashi), is a replacement name proposed here for Podocarpium (Benth.) Y.C. Yang & P.H. Huang published in 1979 for Chinese species belonging to the genus. The name it replaces, Podocarpium (Benth.) Y.C. Yang & P.H. Huang, is a later homonym of two earlier names, Podocarpium A. Braun ex Stizenb. (fossil Leguminosae or Fabaceae) and Podocarpium Unger (fossil Podocarpaceae) and it is also inadmissible under Art. 20.2. New combinations in Hylodesmum are proposed for 14 species and nine infraspecific taxa. A description of the genus is given as well as brief notes on the distribution of each taxon. Shuteria longipes Franch. and Desmodium duclouxii Pamp. are newly regarded as conspecific; the correct name for these in Hylodesmum is H. longipes. Notes on typification are given for several names.

The new species Begonia samhaensis, in section Peltaugustia (Warb.) Barkley, is described from the island of Samha in the Socotra archipelago. It differs from the only other species in the section, B. socotrana Hook.f., in a number of gross morphological characters and is likely to be a relict taxon rather than the result of more recent dispersal and divergence. A revision of sect. Peltaugustia is presented. Detailed surveys have been carried out on both species. The new species has a restricted distribution and a total population of fewer than 1000 individuals, and is recommended to be placed in the IUCN category VU D1, 2. Begonia socotrana has been found in new sites, and is locally common in parts of its range. Its current placing in the IUCN ‘Vulnerable’ category is considered to be unwarranted, and it is recommended that the species should be listed as ‘Least Concern’.

The species of Aeschynanthus Jack (Gesneriaceae) in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are revised. Eighteen species are recognised, keys to the species are given, all names are typified, and detailed descriptions of all species are provided. Conservation assessments are given for all species. Aeschynanthus cambodiensis D.J.Middleton, Aeschynanthus jouyi D.J.Middleton and Aeschynanthus pedunculatus D.J.Middleton are newly described.

A new species, Oocephalus pubescens A.Soares & Harley, from Chapada dos Veadeiros, Goiás, Brazil, is described and illustrated. The characteristics that distinguish it from a similar taxon, Oocephalus foliosus, are listed, and comments on its distribution and an occurrence map are provided.

Recent floristic study of the island of Limnos (NE Aegean, Greece) has resulted in the addition of 69 new plant taxa. As a result the flora of the island now comprises 750 taxa. New alien species such as Erigeron sumatrensis, Erigeron canadensis, Symphyotrichum squamatum, Amaranthus retroflexus and Amaranthus blitoides nowadays colonise thousands of hectares of fertile ground and present the highest rates of invasion. Ecological factors such as soil texture, high winds and human intervention, in combination with their seed dispersal mode and genetic background, may explain their successful establishment and impressive abundance especially in the eastern part of the island. Among the new records of indigenous plants are some interesting taxa from a phytogeographical point of view, such as Bupleurum euboeum and the Greek endemic Polygonum icaricum.

Two new species of Begonia (Begoniaceae), Begonia ozotothrix and Begonia hekensis, are described from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Both species belong to Begonia section Petermannia. Begonia ozotothrix is unusual amongst Asian Begonia in having branched trichomes on the stems, petioles and the abaxial lamina surfaces, and it is unusual amongst species of Begonia section Petermannia in having extremely compressed cymose-subumbellate male partial inflorescences.

Gentiana springateana D.Maity sp. nov. (Gentianaceae) is described from the Sikkim Himalaya and placed in G. section Phyllocalyx (Kusn.) T.N.Ho. This new taxon is described and illustrated, and compared morphologically with two related taxa, Gentiana phyllocalyx C.B.Clarke and G. urnula Harry Sm.

A length polymorphism in the trnL/trnF intergenic spacer was used as a marker to determine the mode of chloroplast inheritance in Streptocarpus (Gesneriaceae). Exclusively maternal inheritance was recorded for all the F1 progeny of reciprocal intraspecific crosses between S. primulifolius and a population referred to as S. aff. primulifolius from the Igoda River mouth, Eastern Cape, South Africa, and for interspecific crosses between S. rexii and S. dunnii. A combination of molecular and morphological data was used to clarify the origin of S. aff. primulifolius, which possesses S. rexii-type cpDNA and rDNA, while the morphological data suggest an intermediate position between S. rexii and S. primulifolius. The distribution of S. rexii and S. primulifolius, combined with molecular and morphological data, supports the hypothesis that the S. aff. primulifolius population is a hybrid between S. rexii and S. primulifolius, with S. rexii as the maternal parent, and that substantial molecular but limited morphological introgression into S. primulifolius has taken place.

The genus Clemensiella (Apocynaceae – Asclepiadoideae) is reported to include two species. Clemensiella mariae, a Philippine endemic, is redescribed, illustrated, and lectotypified. Its chromosome number (2n = 22) is reported for the first time. The recently described Hoya viracensis is synonymised with Clemensiella mariae. Clemensiella omlori is described as a new species from Borneo and Sumatra. The taxonomic relationship of Clemensiella to other genera of tribe Marsdenieae is discussed.

The genus Nageia has received varying taxonomic treatments. The most recent are those by de Laubenfels (1969, under the name Decussocarpus de Laub.; 1987, as Nageia Gaertn.), by Fu (1992) and by Melikyan & Bobrov (2000). De Laubenfels treated the genus in a broad sense, embracing three sections that are now generally recognized respectively as the separate genera Afrocarpus (J. Buchholz & N. E. Gray) Gaussen ex C. N. Page, Nageia sensu stricto, and Retrophyllum C. N. Page (as by Page, 1989, 1990). In de Laubenfels's earlier paper, these three sections were respectively called Decussocarpus de Laub. sect. Afrocarpus (J. Buchholz & N. E. Gray) de Laub., D. sect. Dammaroideae (Benn.) de Laub. [as ‘Dammaroides’], and D. sect. Decussocarpus. The name Decussocarpus had been substituted for Nageia Gaertn. as the type of that generic name is based upon mixed elements belonging to Myrtaceae and Podocarpaceae and, in 1969, an Article of the International Code then in force (Art. 70) banned the use of names based on such ‘discordant elements’. This Article was deleted by the Leningrad Congress and the name Nageia once again became legitimate and available for use. This necessitated de Laubenfels's brief paper of 1987, where the three sections of Decussocarpus which he had earlier recognized were respectively renamed Nageia sect. Afrocarpus (J. Buchholz & N. E. Gray) de Laub., N. sect. Nageia and N. sect. Polypodiopsis (C. E. Bertrand) de Laub.

This study describes the structure of the arboreal plant community in a cerradão fragment located at the Serra de Caldas Novas State Park, Goiás, central Brazil. It also compares the collected data with information from 10 other cerradão sites on dystrophic and mesotrophic soils. All trees of 4.77 cm or more diameter at breast height, in twenty-five 20 m × 20 m plots, were surveyed. Soil samples were analysed to determine the availability of nutrients. The vegetation had a discontinuous canopy, with a high density of small and medium-sized trees, and the soil was classified as dystrophic according to nutrient availability. Under ordination using Detrended Correspondence Analysis, species characteristic of the study site, such as Sclerolobium paniculatum and Emmotum nitens, were positioned in the central portion, while cosmopolitan species formed distinct groups, separated along the two axes. The community showed a low level of similarity in comparison to cerradões reported in the literature in other parts of Brazil, having more than 50% similarity only with three geographically close sites.