Tetrapilus Explained

Tetrapilus is a genus of flowering plants in the olive family, Oleaceae. It includes 21 species native to south and southeast Asia, ranging from India through Indochina and southern China to Malesia.

Genus Tetrapilus was first described by João de Loureiro in 1790. It was later subsumed into genus Olea as subgenus. A phylogenomic analysis discovered that the species in subgenus Tetrapilus and Olea caudatilimba did not share a most recent common ancestor with the other Olea species (subgenera Olea and Paniculatae), making Olea polyphyletic. These species were transferred to the revived genus Tetrapilus.^[1]

Species

21 species are accepted:

• Tetrapilus borneensis
• Tetrapilus brachiatus
• Tetrapilus caudatilimbus
• Tetrapilus cordatulus
• Tetrapilus dioicus
• Tetrapilus gagnepainii
• Tetrapilus gamblei
• Tetrapilus hainanensis
• Tetrapilus javanicus
• Tetrapilus laxiflorus
• Tetrapilus moluccensis
• Tetrapilus neriifolius
• Tetrapilus palawanensis
• Tetrapilus parvilimbus
• Tetrapilus polygamus
• Tetrapilus roseus
• Tetrapilus rubrovenius
• Tetrapilus salicifolius
• Tetrapilus tetragonocladus
• Tetrapilus tsoongii
• Tetrapilus wightianus

Notes and References

1. Dong, W.-P., Sun, J.-H., Liu, Y.-L., Xu, C., Wang, Y.-H., Suo, Z.-L., Zhou, S.-L., Zhang, Z.-X. and Wen, J. (2022), Phylogenomic relationships and species identification of the olive genus Olea (Oleaceae). J. Syst. Evol., 60: 1263-1280. https://doi.org/10.1111/jse.12802