Eugenia, Linnaeus, 1753

Proença, Carolyn E. B., Faria, Jair Eustáquio Quintino & Mazine, Fiorella Fernanda, 2017, A new species and a new name in Myrtaceae (Myrteae) from Southeastern Brazil, Phytotaxa 308 (2), pp. 259-266 : 261

1. Eugenia

Eugenia Linnaeus (1753: 470) is the largest genus of Myrtaceae in the Neotropics with 1,106 species ( Govaerts et al. 2008), of which 388 are known from Brazil ( Sobral et al. 2016). It is recognized by its solitary, axillary flowers or thyrses, racemes, auxothelic inflorescences, thyrsoids, botryioids, compound and simple dichasia in which the rachis can be elongated to very contracted, and that are sometimes frondose, i.e., vegetative growth continues after flowering. The flowers are generally tetramerous, usually with completely free calyx lobes, rarely partially or completely fused, bilocular ovaries with few to many ovules per locule with axillar placentation, and fruits with 1 to few seeds with a membranaceous to crustaceous testa. The embryo has well-developed cotyledons that may vary from completely fused to distinct and plano-convex with a small or vestigial hypocotyl ( Landrum & Kawasaki 1997, Sobral 2003).