Reevaluating monotypic Eleutherostylis from New Guinea and the Moluccas, and its inclusion in Grewia (Malvaceae: Grewioideae)

Morphological and molecular phylogenetic evidence indicate that Eleutherostylis Burret (Malvaceae: Grewioideae), a monotypic genus described from New Guinea, is best considered a synonym of Grewia L., a species-rich genus widespread across the paleotropics and found in Africa, Arabia, Asia, Australia, and the western Pacific. A new combination based on E. renistipulata Burret, G. renistipulata (Burret) Dorr, comb. nov., is proposed. Original material of the basionym could not be located and a neotype is designated. A lectotype is designated for G. morotaiensis Kosterm., a synonym of G. renistipulata.

Methods
This DNA dataset, based on nuclear ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS), is designed to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships of Eleutherostylis (Malvaceae) and is derived from fluorescent Sanger sequencing on an ABI 3730xl DNA Analyzer. The reads were assembled with Sequencher v5.2.4 and consensus sequences were aligned with MAFFT v.7.272 (Katoh and Standley 2013) under the G-INS-i refinement method followed by minor manual refinements based on a similarity criterion.