Commersonia is a genus of twenty-five species of flowering plants in the family Malvaceae. Plants in this genus are shrubs or trees, occurring from Indochina to Australia and have stems, leaves and flowers covered with star-like hairs. The leaves are simple, often with irregularly-toothed edges, the flowers bisexual with five sepals, five petals and five stamens and the fruit a capsule with five valves. The genus underwent a revision in 2011 and some species were separated from Commersonia, others were added from Rulingia.[2][3][4][5]
The genus Coommersonia was first formally described in 1775 by Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg Forster in the book Characteres generum plantarum and the first species they described was Commersonia echinata, now known as Commersonia bartramia.[6][7]
A revision of the genus in 2011 added 3 newly described species, as well as 14 species previously included in Rulingia, and transferred a number of species to the newly created genus Androcalva.[8]
The genus is named after Philibert Commerson (1727–73), a French naturalist who sailed with the Bougainville expedition in 1766 and died on Mauritius.[2]
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