ИСТИНА

Aspidistra is a genus of more than 130 species of herbaceous plants growing in the forests of tropical Asia. Many new species have been described from southern China and northern Vietnam during the last few decades. Despite this large number of new species, the infrageneric systematics of Aspidistra is still not well developed. Some traits that seem taxonomically significant are considered and examples of some species from Vietnam are given. Most species of Aspidistra possess flowers with six/eight tepals, six/eight stamens and three/four carpels. Flowers with five, seven or nine tepals (and stamens) sometimes also occur in A. phanluongii N.Vislobokov and A. xuansonensis N.Vislobokov. The most appropriate interpretation of such flowers is the occurrence of non-integer merism of the perianth and androecium. The flowers of A. paucitepala N.Vislobokov, Nuraliev & D.D.Sokoloff should thus be interpreted as 1.5-merous pentacyclic. Some authors write that Aspidistra may be divided into two groups: plants with solitary leaves, and plants with tufted leaves (2-5 leaves). In fact, the monopodial rhizome of Aspidistra consists of regularly repeating units (elementary shoots), each unit comprising distichously arranged cataphylls followed by one (e.g. A. clausa N.Vislobokov) or a few (2-5) foliage leaves (e.g. A. triradiata N.Vislobokov). In relation to the gynoecium shape in Aspidistra, there are three most common types of flower structure: with a table-shaped stigma, a mushroom-shaped stigma, and a conical gynoecium. Investigation of the pollination biology of some Aspidistra species in Vietnam shows the occurrence of myiophily with differences between these groups. There are not enough molecular phylogenetic data about relationships between species in Aspidistra. We attempted to apply the molecular barcoding method (plastid psbA-trnH region and nuclear 5S-NTS region) to some species of Aspidistra. This approach is not completely developed but does allow Aspidistra species growing in same location and flowering asynchronously to be distinguished.