Notes on Arytera (Sapindaceae)

Consequently upon a revision of Mischocarpus (Van der Ham, 1977a), a detailed study has been made of several characters in Arytera in order to get a better understanding of the delimitation of the two genera mutually. The differences between Mischocarpus and Arytera given by Radlkofer (1931) in his key are vague and can only be used when fruiting material is available. However, several species in Arytera were described by him and others on flowering material only. Two species of Mischocarpus could be connected with species of Arytera. One species of Arytera appeared to be the same as Mischocarpus exangulatus. M. exangulatus has, besides typical Mischocarpus characters, several features unique in Mischocarpus but more regularly occurring in Arytera. Radlkofer distinguished 4 sections with 24 species. A few more species were described afterwards but were not placed in a section. When searching for new characters on which to base a better delimitation against Mischocarpus, variation in several characters of Arytera turned out to be rather wide for a genus within the Cupanieae. Moreover, these variations appeared to be discontinuous. With help of a few characters, groups of species could be formed which are more natural and better based than the sections made by Radlkofer. Several species or groups of species turned out to be wrongly placed or at least dubious in Arytera. Even the naturalness of Arytera as provisionally accepted here can be questioned. The material studied mainly comes fom L and M (types of Radlkofer). Material of nearly all species was available.