This is the second part of a world-wide revision of the genus Boehmeria, the previously-published part having dealt with the New World species. The Old World species are widely distributed in the tropics and subtropics from West Africa to islands in the Pacific Ocean and from Japan and China to Southern Africa, Madagascar and Australia, with the highest species richness in the Himalayas and their extension into China and Indochina. No indigenous species is common to both the Old and New World. The species represent taxonomic units of very different complexity: most species exhibit little infraspecific variation; in several others formal taxonomic infraspecific units can be recognised; however, in two, B. virgata and B. japonica, a highly complex variation... |