Aphloia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Aphloiaceae, order Crossosomatales, containing a single species: Aphloia theiformis. It is the sole genus of its family, making it one of the more isolated lineages among the flowering plants.
Aphloia theiformis grows as an evergreen shrub or small tree, reaching up to 10 metres in height. Young branches are hairless and brown, marked with longitudinal stripes and winged extensions at the nodes. The alternately arranged leaves are set in two rows along the branches; their blades are elliptic, 3–8 cm long and 1–3 cm wide, with a pointed or rounded tip and a finely saw-toothed margin toward the tip. Flowers are small and inconspicuous, produced singly or in clusters of two or three in the leaf axils on greenish stalks up to 2 cm long. Each flower has four to five (rarely six) slightly leathery, white to yellowish, concave tepals arranged in an undifferentiated perianth, with numerous stamens. The fruit is a fleshy white berry approximately 8 mm in diameter, containing around ten small seeds.
The genus was described by John Joseph Bennett in 1840 and was long placed in the broadly circumscribed family Flacourtiaceae. Armen Takhtajan later recognised its distinct character and established the monogeneric family Aphloiaceae. Under the APG III classification (2009), Aphloiaceae is placed within the order Crossosomatales, a position also supported by Matthews & Endress (2005) and Stevens (2006).
The species is native to East Africa, Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, and the Seychelles, where it occurs in forest and woodland habitats.
Taxonomy Notes
Aphloia was described by John Joseph Bennett in 1840 and placed in the large, paraphyletic family Flacourtiaceae, where it remained for most of its taxonomic history. Armen Takhtajan was the first to recognise its distinctness and segregated it into its own monogeneric family, Aphloiaceae. The APG II system (2003) admitted Aphloiaceae among the Rosids without assigning it to an order; APG III (2009), following Matthews & Endress (2005) and Stevens (2006), placed the family in Crossosomatales.
Distribution
Aphloia theiformis, the sole species of the genus, is native to East Africa, Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands (Réunion, Mauritius), and the Seychelles. Its range spans the western Indian Ocean region, where it grows in moist forest and woodland habitats.
