Haptanthus

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Haptanthus is a monotypic genus of flowering plants, the sole species is Haptanthus hazlettii, shrubs only known at the locality of Matarras, Arizona Municipality, Atlántida Department in Honduras.

It has placed in its own family Haptanthaceae C. Nelson by Shipunov 2005, but is considered among unplaced taxa (taxa incertae sedis) by APG (Stevens, P. F. , Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, 2001 onwards) and others (including Goldberg) for insufficient data: fruits and seeds are still unknown.

Goldberg (from Smithsonian Institution) has preferred not assign it to any family, after compare it with many other families, the most probable were Flacourtiaceae and Euphorbiaceae. Haptanthus is a true taxonomic enigma.

Several attempts were made to recollect material from Haptanthus, but they failed.

Haptanthus may be a tragic example of species that not even were still completely known by Science and which are already extinct.

[edit] References

Nelson S., C. (2001). Plantas descritas originalmente de Honduras y sus nomenclaturas equivalentes actuales. Ceiba 42(1): 1–71. (available online) [In Spanish] [original description of the family on page 33]
Doust, A. N. & Stevens, P. F.(2005). A Reinterpretation of the Staminate Flowers of Haptanthus.Systematic Botany 30(4): 779–785.(available online)
Shipunov, A. B. (2003). The system of flowering plants from a synthetic point of view. Zhurnal Obshchei Biologii 64: 501–510. [In Russian]
Goldberg, A. & Alden, H. A. (2005). Taxonomy of Haptanthus Goldberg & C. Nelson. Systematic Botany 30: 773-778.
Goldberg, A. & Nelson S., C. (1989). Haptanthus, a new dicotyledonous genus from Honduras. Systematic Botany 14: 16-19.
Shipunov, A. B.(2005). Systema Angiospermarum, v.4.8.(available online)