Begonia sect. Pritzelia (Klotzsch) A.DC.

Moonlight, Peter. W., Jara-Muñoz, Orlando A., Purvis, David A., Delves, Jay, Allen, Josh P. & Reynel, Carlos, 2023, The genus Begonia (Begoniaceae) in Peru, European Journal of Taxonomy 881, pp. 1-334 : 252

Begonia sect. Pritzelia (Klotzsch) A.DC.

Annales des Sciences Naturelles Botanique, Série 4 11: 137 ( de Candolle 1859). – Pritzelia Klotzsch, Bericht über die zur Bekanntmachung geeigneten Verhandlungen der Königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 1854: 126 ( Klotzsch 1854).

– Type: lectotype: Pritzelia fischeri (Otto & A.Dietr.) Klotzsch ≡ Begonia dietrichiana Irmsch. , designated by Barkley & Baranov (1972: 6).

Synonymy notes

For a full list of sectional synonyms, see Moonlight et al. (2018).

Notes

Most species of B. sect. Pritzelia are endemic to the Atlantic forests of Brazil and the section is amongst the most morphologically diverse in the Americas. Species in this section are united by their entire placentae and the presence of cystoliths composed of oxalic acid within their leaf laminae ( Doorenbos et al. 1998). The section is represented within Peru by a single species.

Prior to the first molecular sectional classification of Begonia , no species in the section were known from the Andes ( Doorenbos et al. 1998); however, this changed when B. sect. Scheidweilaria (Klotzsch) A.DC. was brought into its synonymy ( Moonlight et al. 2018). This section differed in its deeply incised or rarely palmately compound leaves, its shorter anthers, and its flattened seeds, but was found to be nested with B. sect. Pritzelia .