Rogiera includes 10 species of small trees and shrubs, which occasionally are climbers. It is characterized by its medium-sized, often stiff or rugulose leaves; interpetiolar, triangular to ovate stipules; terminal, paniculiform to cymose, multi-flowered inflorescences; 4--6-merous distylous flowers; narrow, often unequal calyx lobes; salverform, medium-sized, white to red corollas with a white or yellow mouth that is pubescent but lacks a thickened ring; and somewhat small, rounded, loculicidal capsules with numerous flattened seeds. Rogiera was studied in excellent detail by Torres-Montúfar et al.  (2021), who presented exceptionally useful line drawings. As noted by them, the stipules are variously erect or spreading, and this arrangement is distinctive for the species. The inflorescence arrangement appears somewhat variable due to the variable development of the bracts subtending the basalmost secondary axes. These bracts range from small to foliaceous, and this is common pattern in Rubiaceae but the foliaceous bracts are sometimes interpreted as leaves with the result that the inflorescence arrangement is interpreted as sessile or on axillary stems. The corolla mouth is pubescent with flattened trichomes.The pollen morphology was detailed by Torres-Montúfar et al. (2020). The form of the seeds is somewhat variable, from discoid to elliptic in shape and entire to winged on the margins. Torres-Montúfar et al. noted, based on extensive field work, that although Rogiera is usually characterized as a group of humid or wet forest, several of its species also grow in seasonal, deciduous vegetation. Rondeletia amoena is the more widespread and commonly collected species.

The information here is based on Torres-Montúfar et al. (2021). They circumscribed Rogiera differently than done by Lorence et al. (2012), who included in Rogiera two additional species that Torres-Montúfar et al. and Bohridi et al. (20014) separated in Rovaeanthus.The species-level taxonomy of Torres-Montúfar et al. is similar to that of Lorence et al. (2012), but synonomizes several species recognized by Borhidi & Velasco and Borhidi (2012). 

Rogiera agrees morphologically in most details with the Rondeletia complex, a group of Rubiaceae found in Mesoamerica and the Greater Antilles, The identification of lineages within this group has been difficult due to the close morphological similarity and also variation in usually diagnostic features found within some of these the lineages. The species of Rogiera were treated for some time in Rondeletia, which was broadly circumscribed so the characters of these two species were not clearly discordant. Rondeletia was then found by molecular (Rova et al., 2002) and morphological surveys (Borhidi 1987, Borhidi et al. 2004) to comprise several unrelated lineages, which have been separated into several smaller genera., One of these was Rogiera, which was separated by Borhidi based on its corollas with a densely villose or pilosulous, white or yellow ring of trichomes in the corolla mouth, in contrast to a fleshy but glabrous ring in the mouth of the corollas of Rondeletia (Borhidi, 1987). The two species separated in Rovaeanthus both have corollas with dense yellow pubescence in the mouth, and were included in Rogiera by Borhidi (1987). Later, molecular analyses (Rova et al., 2002, 2009; Manns & Bremer, 2010) found Rogiera separated from Rondeletia and these lineages placed in separate tribes, except two species  of Rogiera were separated from both Rondeletia and the rest of Rogiera and also placed in a different tribe from Rogiera. The positions of these two species in the cladograms of Rova et al. were not strongly supported in all analyses, but this support was considered adequate by Borhidi (2004, 2012) to place these two species in a separate new genus, Rovaeanthus. As noted by Torres-Montúfar & Ochoterena (2019), Borhidi's new genus was not separated quickly from Rogiera by all authors (e.g., Lorence et al., 2012), in part because it was not distinguished by morphological characters that seemed distinct at the time within that group, and in part because the support found by Rova et al. (2002) for this new group from all other genera was not considered conclusive by all authors. [Other factors in the slow separation of Rovaeanthus from Rogiera were, that the the editing and publication of large floras proceeds slowly and treatment of Lorence et al. was finalized well before Manns & Bremer showed good support for this new group, and that Borhidi described this genus in studies that separated several genera that were not clearly distinguishable (e.g., Resinanthus) so more conclusive evidence and morphological distinctions were wanted.]

Subsequent molecular studies have clarified the close relationship and delimitation of the tribes Rondeletieae and Guettardeae (Manns & Bremer, 2010; Torres-Montúfar et al., 2020), and the placement of Rovaeanthus in the former and Rogiera in the latter. Morphologically, Torres-Montúfar & Ochoterena (2019) separated several genera of the Rondeletia complex only by a combination of two or more flower characters that are individually characteristic of more than one genus, rather than a single unique feature. Torres-Montúfar & Ochoterena (2019: 122) considered these two features, the pubescence and fleshy thickening, to be "different and independent character states". They diagnosed Rogiera by a corolla throat that is differently colored compared to the lobes, yellow or white; lacks a fleshy ring; and is pubescent with white or yelow trichomes. These features contrast with the corollas of Rondeletia, which are glabrous and markedly thickened in the throat, and with Rovaeanthus, which have a fleshy ring in the throat and are also pubescent with flattened yellow trichomes. 

Rogiera is also similar to some species of Arachnothryx, which generally have a glabrous corolla throat and sometimes have septicidal capsules. 

Author: C.M. Taylor. The content of this web page was last revised on 7 July 2021.
Taylor web page: http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/curators/taylor.shtml

• Torres-Montúfar, A., H. Flores-Olvera & H. Ochoterena-Booth. 2021. A taxonomic treatment of Rogiera (Guettardeae, Rubiaceae). Syst. Bot. 46(1): 186–210.
• Torres-Montúfar, A., T. Borsch, S. Fuentes-Bazán, J. Gutiérrez & H. Ochoterena-Booth. 2020. It is not a disaster: molecular and morphologically based phylogenetic analysis of Rondeletieae and the Rondeletia complex (Cinchonoideae, Rubiaceae). Pl. Syst. Evol. 306(26): 1–25.
• Borhidi, A. L., J. Darók, M. Kocsis, S. Stranczinger & F. Kaposvári. 2004. El Rondeletia complejo en México. Acta Bot. Hung. 46(1–2): 91–135.
• Borhidi, A. L. & K. Velasco Gutiérrez. 2012. Estudios sobre Rubiáceas Méxicanas XXXVI. Dos especies nuevas en el género Rogiera Planch. (Rondeletieae). Acta Bot. Hung. 54(1–2): 51–58.
• Borhidi, A. L. 2012. Rubiác. México 2da ed. 1–608.
• Borhidi, A. L. 1987. Studies in Rondeletieae (Rubiaceae) X. New combinations of Central American taxa. Acta Bot. Hung. 33(3–4): 301–303.
• Torres-Montúfar, A. & H. Ochoterena-Booth. 2019. Taxonomic treatment of the Mesoamerican genus Rovaeanthus (Rondeletieae, Rubiaceae). Phytotaxa 403(2): 122–130.
• Torres-Montúfar, A., Ramírez Arriaga, H. Ochoterena-Booth & E. Martínez-Hernández. 2020. Systematic relevance of the pollen morphology for the Rondeletia complex (Cinchonoideae, Rubiaceae). Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 194: 290–307.