Taxonomic Revision Of Embelia(Primulaceae S.l.) In China And Pan-Himalaya

The genus Embelia Burman was placed in Myrsinaceae in traditional taxonomy systems,but in APG(III)and APG(IV)it was included in Primulaceae.The genus consists of 130-140 species and is widely distributed in the Pacific islands,tropical and subtropical regions such as southern Asia and Africa,and a few species are distributed in Oceania.In China,the species of Embelia are distributed in the southeast to southwestern provinces,with species richness in Yunnan.The Pan-Himalayas(the Himalayas and adjacent regions)forms a natural geographic unit with extremely rich plant diversity,from the Wakhan Corridor and northeastern Hindu Kush eastwards to the Hengduan Mountains via Karakorum and the Himalayas.This region covers northeastern corner of Afghanistan,northern Pakistan,northern India,Nepal,Bhutan,northern Myanmar,and southwest China(S Tibet,SE Qinghai,SE Gansu,W Sichuan and NW Yunnan).There are not many changes much about the taxonomy of Embelia for a long time,but the boundaries between some species are undefined,many species in China have been misidentified due to insufficient original description or lack of examination in type specimens.Up to now there is not a taxonomic revision of Embelia species in Pan-Himalayas region and china,and this research tried to fill in the gap of the statistics and revision.Base on field study,examination of a large number of specimens and taxonomic literatures,a taxonomic revision of Embelia in Pan-Himalayas region and China was conducted.Characters of leaves,inflorescences,fruits,indumentum and glands of the Embelia are redescribed in detail,and some problems of doubtful species were clarified.The original literature,synonyms,alongwith distribution,habitat,specimens citation of each species were surveyed in detail.In total,17 species,2 subspecies were recognized in the research region,including 10 species in Pan-Himalayas region,and 14 species,2 subspecies in China.We accepted thetreatment of each species of Embelia by Flora of China,and implemented the description of3 other species which appeared in Pan-Himalayas region but not in China,including Embelia tsieriam-cottam(Roemer & Schultes)A.DC.,Embelia clarkei Bedd.& Mez ex Mez,Embelia arunachalensis R.K.Choudhary,R.C.Srivast.& Arup K.Das.The new identification keys to sections and species were provided.