Note on the genus Barteria Hook. f. (Flacourtiaceae or Passifloraceae)

The discrimination of species in the genus Barteria has become more and more difficult with the increasing number of collections in recent years. To explain his treatment of the genus in the forthcoming 2nd part of the Flacourtiaceae in the ‘Flore d’Afrique Central (Zaire-Rwanda-Burundi)’, the author wants to discuss the diversity of characters found in the Barterias within the said flora, the area of which coincides more or less with the centre of distribution of the genus. The first species was described by Hooker f. under the name of B. nigritana from the coast of S. Nigeria. This species is bound to sandy soils of the beaches, to inner parts of the mangrove vegetation, and to littoral and sublittoral bush or forest, and is known along the coast from S. Nigeria to Fernando Poo, Cameroons, Rio Muni, Gabon, Cabinda, and the most western parts of Congo-Brazzaville and of Zaire. The petioles of B. nigritana are slender, its axillary inflorescences few-flowered.