Tecomaria Spach

Editorial Note

The Southern African genus Tecomaria (two species) has been included in the otherwise exclusively New World genus Tecoma, to which it is morphologically extremely close in spite of the strongly disjunct distribution (Gentry 1980). Given the apparent closeness of the species involved, the geographical separation appeared so baffling that it has in the past been assumed that Tecomaria must have been introduced to Africa from South America, the view of Seemann (1863), who believed it to have been found wild in Brazil (disputed by Gentry (1980), who asserts that it is a rare escape from cultivation). Recent molecular research appears to settle the question, showing Tecomaria to be more closely related to the African genus Podranea than it is to Tecoma (Olmstead et al. 2009).