Leucothoe D.Don

Editorial Note

We have published this stub genus article as part of a wider programme of work, beginning in early 2025, to bring the nomenclature of articles in line with modern treatments. Historic Bean text will appear under its correct modern name, with appropriate synonymy and adapted where necessary, until we have funding to update the articles entirely. If you would like to sponsor this genus please contact editor@treesandshrubsonline.org

Now a shadow of its former self, when Bean’s latest (1981) edition was published, Leucothoe contained around 45 deciduous and evergreen species distributed throughout North and South America, and (to a lesser extent) East Asia. Since then the genus has been thoroughly dismantled on phylogenetic grounds, sections having been split off into Agarista (mainly South American), Eubotrys (North American, deciduous) and Eubotryoides (Japanese, deciduous) – see the entries for those genera. As a result, the rump genus Leucothoe has been left with just five species, all evergreen and with an East Asian – North American distribution.

This process of revision and reordering was supported by molecular data and cladistics, but its conclusions notably concur with those of earlier taxonomists – from Nuttall (1843) to Sleumer (1959) – whose observations had gradually established a convincing infrageneric classification so strongly defined that surprise has been expressed that Leucothoe was maintained as a genus for so long (see Waselkov & Judd (2008), who give a detailed account of the taxonomic history).