Three New Palm Genera from Indonesia

摘要

This paper is an illustrated introduction to three recently-described palm genera from Indonesia.The past few years have seen a surge in the recognition of new palm genera. Some, like Tahina from Madagascar and Sabinaria from Colombia, were the results of new exploration yielding palms never before seen by botanists. Others, such as Dransfieldia, Lanonia, Leucothrinax and Saribus, were hiding in plain sight, masquerading as other genera, their new identities first revealed by DNA sequencing. The three recently-described Indonesian genera (Heatubun et al. 2014a) came to light as a result of both newexploration and molecular analyses. All three genera are monotypic and belong to the subtribe Ptychospermatinae, which includes important ornamental genera such as Ptychosperma, Veitchia and Wodyetia.Two of the three genera were discovered in the course of work toward a comprehensiveaccount of the palms of New Guinea (PoNG). The PoNG project, led from Kew but involving collaborators from many institutions, has instigated field work in New Guinea, focusing on areas not previously visited by botanists and has brought about the discovery and description of dozens of new species. Nevertheless, the discovery of two new palm genera in the offshore islands at.the western end of New Guinea, and another new genus in nearby Halmahera (Fig. 1), injthe span of just a few years was surprising and unprecedented.