Breynia (Breynia)
Description
Breynia is a plant genus in the family Phyllanthaceae, first described as a genus in 1776. It is native to Southeast Asia, China, the Indian Subcontinent, Papuasia, Australia, and the island of R-union. The name Breynia is a conserved name, in other words, it is recognized despite the existence of an earlier use of the same name to refer to a different plant. Breynia L. 1753 is in the Capparaceae, but it is a rejected name. We here discuss Breynia J.R.Forst. & G.Forst. 1776.Breynia are of note in the fields of pollination biology and coevolution because they have a specialized mutualism with moths in the genus Epicephala (leafflower moths), in which the moths actively pollinate the flowers-thereby ensuring that the tree may produce viable seeds-but also lay eggs in the flowers' ovaries or in the space between the tepals and the carpel walls, from where their larvae consume a subset of the developing seeds as nourishment.Other species of Epicephala are pollinators, and in some cases, non-pollinating seed predators, of certain species of plants in the genera Phyllanthus and Glochidion,both closely related to Breynia.This relationship is similar to those between figs and fig wasps and yuccas and yucca moths.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Magnoliopsida
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Order: Euphorbiales
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Family: Euphorbiaceae
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Genus: Breynia
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