XVI International Botanical Congess

Re-examinations have been carries out on the delimitation characters between Wikstroemia and Daphne.Only the leaf phyllotaxy is practicable as a generic characters. The different types of inflorescence depend largely on differences in flower numbers and growth rates of inflorescence axis which their variations equally cover Wikstroemia and Daphne and exist no obvious gap between them.The scalelike and annular disc depends on the relative growth rates of its different parts, and the variation of the growth rate leaves no larger gap between two genera than that between species within Wikstroemia or Daphne. The morphologies of inflorescence and disc are impracticable as generic characters.Revised generic concepts of Wikstroemia and Daphne are suggested on the basis of discontinuity and correlation of characters without priori weighting on floral or vegetative characters.