Schefflera

Schefflera is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araliaceae with 13 species native to New Zealand and some Pacific islands.

The genus is named in honor of Johann Peter Ernst von Scheffler, physician and botanist of Gdańsk, and later of Warsaw, who contributed plants to Gottfried Reyger for Reyger's book, Tentamen Florae Gedanensis.

Taxonomy

The circumscription of the genus has varied greatly. Phylogenetic studies have shown that the widely used broad circumscription was polyphyletic, so most of its hundreds of species have been reassigned to other genera. Molecular analyses have recovered five polyphyletic clades of Schefflera, all of which are geographically isolated from one another yet share similar traits indicating parallel evolution. These clades have been split into separate genera, primarily along geographical lines, with Schefflera now consisting of thirteen species restricted to New Zealand and some Pacific islands. The houseplant popularly known as "Schefflera" is now Heptapleurum arboricola.