The family Rubiaceae comprises 614 genera and about 13,465 species distributed worldwide, with a large number of species occurring in tropical areas, especially in Madagascar and the Andes region (Stevens, 2020). The genus Ixora comprises about 300-400 species of shrubs and small trees with the greatest diversity occurring in tropical Asia (Lorence et al., 2007). Recent phylogenetic analyses have shown that the genus Ixora (as presently delimited) is poly- or paraphyletic and that the tribe can be subdivided into three major clades: the Mascarene/neotropical/Malagasy/African clade, the Paci?c clade and the Asian clade
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