XVI International Botanical Congess

The genus Cladrastis Raf. (Fabaceae, Sophora group sensu Polhil) occurs in the southeastern United States, China and Japan. It consists of small trees with alternate, imparipinnate leaves with alternate leaflets and the lateral buds are completely enclosed in the base of the petiole. The flowers are white and in paniculate inflorescences. NTSYSpc 2.01 was used to conduct a phenetic analysis of morphological characters on a subset from the 600 herbarium specimens examined from 23 herbaria worldwide. The resulting phenogram of vegetative specimens showed 5 clusters of taxa. Further analysis using floral specimens indicated an additional taxon. Comparing these clusters with type specimens resulted in recognition of the following six taxa: Cladrastis platycarpa, C. kentukea, C. wilsonii, C. delavayi, C. shikokiana and one new species C. chingii.