Notes
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This species is characterized by medium-sized petiolate elliptic leaves, pedunculate cymose inflorescences, obtuse flower buds, and cream corollas with tubes 4.5-5.5 mm long and the lobes about half as long as the tube. Ixora gardneriana is similar to Ixora heterodoxa, and this second name was synonymized with it by the Brazil Catalogue. However there were separated by Delprete (2007), who documented differences in flower size and form (e.g., fig. 12O-R). He also treated several Ixora names in synonymy with these two species, and Delprete's synonymy is followed here. The Brazil Catalogue has recognized several of those other names as distinct species but treated Ixora htereodoxa as a synonym, without explanation due to its format, and the type photos seen agree with Delprete's species taxonomy better than the Catalogue's. In any case more study of the eastern Brazilian Ixora species is certainly needed.
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