No longer standing alone: The systematic position of Apollonias arnottii in Lauraceae

Apollonias is one of the taxonomically understudied genera of the family Lauraceae, which consisted of two disjunct distributed species, Apollonias barbujana from the Canary Islands, Spain and A. arnottii from Western Ghats, India. The key characteristic of the genus is the presence of bilocular anthers compared to other genera of Lauraceae. Based on morphology and molecular data, the Canary Island species A. barbujana, type species of the genus Apollonias, has been transferred to the Neotropical genus Persea. This questions the taxonomic relationship of A. arnottii. Based on morphological characteristics, nomenclature and molecular phylogeny, we shifted A. arnottii to the genus Phoebe. Accordingly, we herein propose the transfer of A. arnottii to the genus Phoebe, with the designation of a lectotype, as Phoebe arnottii.