Introduction to Botany of the Marquesas Islands: new taxa, combinations, and revisions

The Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia) are an isolated group of volcanic hot spot islands in the SE Pacific Ocean. These 12 islands range from 61.3 to 330 km2 in size, from 360 to 1250 m in elevation, and from 1.3 to 6.3 Ma in age. Steep and rugged, the Marquesas were, until recently, comparatively unexplored and under-collected botanically. The only existing flora for the region was that of Brown and Brown (1931), Brown (1935) which is incomplete and outdated. Jacques Florence (IRD, Paris) has published two volumes of the Flore de la Polynesie française (Florence 1997, 2004), but this awaits completion. Disturbance by humans, feral animals, and invasive alien plants have severely impacted the lowland and mid-elevation vegetation (Florence and Lorence 1997; Wagner and Lorence 1997). The currently known native vascular flora comprises about 362 species, of which 45% are endemic. This includes an impressive 118 species of pteridophytes, or 30% of the total. Largest angiosperm lineages are Psychotria L., 13 spp., Bidens L., 9 spp., Cyrtandra J. R. Forst. & G. Forst., 10 spp., Ixora L., 7 spp., Coprosma J. R. Forst. & G. Forst., 6 spp., Oparanthus Sherff, 5 spp., and Kadua Cham. & Schltdl., 4 spp. Marquesan floristic affinities are with the Society, Austral, and other islands in SE Polynesia, the paleotropics, and to a lesser degree, the Hawaiian Archipelago and the neotropics. PhytoKeys 4: 1–4 (2011)