85 SYNOPSIS OF THE GENUS LEDEBOURIA ROTH (HYACINTHACEAE) IN SOUTH AFRICA S. Venter AustralianTropicalHerbarium James Cook University P.O.Box 6811 Cairns, Queensland 4870 Australia E-mail: fanie68@bigpond.com INTRODUCTION The genus Ledebouria Roth belongs to the family Hyacinthaceae (Dahlgren et al. 1985). The distribution of the genus includes the African Continent, India and the Island Nossi-Bé on the northwestern coast of Madagascar (Fig.1).ThecentreofdiversityforthegenusisintheLimpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu/Natal Provinces of the Republic of South Africa. Roth described the genus Ledebouria in1821with Ledebouria hyacinthi- na Roth,fromIndia,asthetypespecies.Thisspecieswastransferredtothe genus Scilla L.andprovidedthebasionymforthelargestsectionof Scilla namely section Ledebouria (Baker,1870).Later Jessop (1970) reinstated the genus Ledebouria whilstrevisingthegenusforSouthAfrica.Thefirstrevi- sion of Ledebouria wasbyBaker(1870)inhismonographof Scilla,section Ledebouria and the genus Drimiopsis.Thiswasfollowedbyarevisionofthe herbaceous capsular gamophyllous Liliaceae (Baker,1870a).The most recent revision of Ledebouria wasbyVenter(1993),againonlyforSouth Africawithsomenotesonspeciesfurthertothenorth. The large degree of phenotypic variation in Ledebouria,particularlywith regard to habit and leaf maculation,has resulted in the publication of 102 species in four different genera. This led to numerous combinations and changes throughout the taxonomic history of the genus.As a result the species concepts were a source of considerable nomenclatural and taxonom- ic confusion. Manning et al.(2004) revised the sub-Saharan Hyacinthaceae based on a molecular phylogenetic analysis and based on this study,the Drimiopsis Lindl.&Paxton, Resnova VanderMerweand Ledebouria clade forms a poly- tomyinthestrictconsensustreeandisnotfurtherresolvedprovidingno support for more than a single genus. The morphological characters used by Manning et al. (2004) as support for this clade are homoplasious or symple- SYNOPSIS OF THE GENUS LEDEBOURIA ROTH (HYACINTHACEAE) IN SOUTH AFRICA 57641_Herbertia 62.qxd:Herbertia58 5/14/09 11:01 AM Page 85