In 1992, a revision of
Tabebuia described 99 species and one
hybrid. Primavera (
Roseodendron donnell-smithii) and a related species with no unique common name (
Roseodendron chryseum) were transferred to
Roseodendron. Those species known as
ipê and ''pau d'arco
(in Portuguese) or poui were transferred to Handroanthus. Sixty-seven species remained in Tabebuia
. The former genus and polyphyletic group of 99 species described by Gentry in 1992 is now usually referred to as "Tabebuia''
sensu lato". Listed in the third column are
species names that have been used recently, but were not accepted by Gentry. The currently accepted
synonym for each is in parentheses. Some recently used names in
Tabebuia that were not recognized by Gentry are not listed in the third column below because they apply to species that are now in
Handroanthus.
Tabebuia spectabilis is an obsolete name for
Handroanthus chrysanthus subsp. meridionalis.
Tabebuia ecuadorensis is now synonymized under
Handroanthus billbergii.
Tabebuia heteropoda is now synonymized under
Handroanthus ochraceus. No species that is now assigned to
Roseodendron or to
Handroanthus is listed below. Authorities are cited for some of the names below. These can be found in Gentry (1992)
Taxonomic history The
name Tabebuia entered the
botanical literature in 1803, when
António Bernardino Gomes used it as a
common name for
Tabebuia uliginosa, now a
synonym for
Tabebuia cassinoides, which he
described as a species of
Bignonia.
Tabebuia is an abbreviation of "tacyba bebuya", a Tupi name meaning "ant wood". Among the
Indigenous peoples in Brazil, similar names exist for various species of
Tabebuia.
Tabebuia was first used as a
generic name by
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1838. The
type species for the genus is
Tabebuia uliginosa, which is now a synonym for
Tabebuia cassinoides. Confusion soon ensued over the meaning of
Tabebuia and what to include within it. Most of the misunderstanding was cleared up by
Nathaniel Lord Britton in 1915. Britton revived the concept of
Tabebuia that had been originated in 1876 by
Bentham and
Hooker, consisting of species with either simple or palmately compound leaves. Similar plants with
pinnately compound leaves were placed in
Tecoma. This is the concept of
Tabebuia that was usually followed until 2007. The genus
Roseodendron was established by
Faustino Miranda González in 1965 for the two species now known as
Roseodendron donnell-smithii and
Roseodendron chryseum. These species had been placed in
Cybistax by
Russell J. Seibert in 1940, but were returned to
Tabebuia by
Alwyn H. Gentry in 1992. Gentry did not agree with the
segregation of
Handroanthus from
Tabebuia and warned against "succumbing to further paroxysms of unwarranted splitting". In 1992, Gentry published a revision of
Tabebuia in
Flora Neotropica, in which he described 99 species and one
hybrid, including those species placed by some authors in
Roseodendron or
Handroanthus.
Tabebuia is now one of 12 to 14 genera belonging to a
group that is informally called the
Tabebuia alliance. This group has not been placed at any particular
taxonomic rank.
Cladistic analysis of
DNA data has strongly supported
Tabebuia by
Bayesian inference and
maximum parsimony. Such studies have so far revealed almost nothing about relationships within the genus, placing nearly all of the
sampled species in a large
polytomy. ==Description==