Aloysia

Cardoso, Pedro Henrique, Valério, Vanessa Imaculada Dos Reis, Neto, Luiz Menini & Salimena, Fátima Regina Gonçalves, 2021, Verbenaceae in Espírito Santo, Brazil: richness, patterns of geographic distribution and conservation, Phytotaxa 484 (1), pp. 1-43 : 8

1. Aloysia Paláu (1784: 767).

Shrubs, monoecious, branches without prickles, aromatic. Leaves petiolate, glands near to the petiole absent. Inflorescences axillary, simple, racemes spiciform, multiflorous, rachis elongated; bracts membranaceous, green; bracteoles absent. Flowers pedicellate; calyx tubular, shorter than the corolla, membranaceous, green, 4-lobed, accrescent in fruit; corolla sub-actinomorphic, 4-lobed; stamens 4, included to slightly exserted, didynamous, superior pair without connective appendages, tecae parallel; ovary 1-carpelate, 2-loculate, ovules 1 per locule, stigma 2-lobed. Fruit a schizocarp, with 2 cluses, brown, external surface smooth.

Aloysia is part of tribe Lantaneae ( Marx et al. 2010) and currently presents 36 species of disjunct distribution in the temperate and subtropical regions of North and South America (O’Leary et al. 2016, Moroni et al. 2016, Cardoso et al. in press.). In North America, there are four species, and 32 are distributed through South America. Only A. gratissima is found in both hemispheres (O’Leary et al. 2016, Moroni et al. 2016). Considered monophyletic, the genus is characterized by the morphological synapomorphy of an evenly 4-lobed calyx ( Lu-Irving et al. 2014). Ten species are recorded in Brazil, all of them occurring in the Atlantic Forest, of which six are endemic ( Moroni & O’Leary 2020a). There are two species in Espírito Santo.