Malaysian region. Originally Phoebe was described containing two groups of species (Nees, 
1836); one Asiatic with species where the leaves are pinninerved and the fruit is without a cupule 
and seated on the clasping indurate persistent tepals, and an American group where the leaves are 
frequently triplinerved and the fruit is sustained by a mostly thickened pedicel, and the floral tube 
develops into a shallow cupule which usually has on its rim the persistent tepals. The two groups 
were later treated as sections by Meissner (1864), the Cinnamomoideae and the Perseoideae, for 
the American and Asiatic species respectively. Bentham (1880) included Phoebe in Persea 
maintaining the two sections as Gnesiopersea and Phoebe. Finally, Pax (1889) again recognized 
Phoebe with two sections. Cinnamomum on the other hand, was always considered an Asiatic 
genus with two sections since Meissner's (1864) work, Camphora, with leaves mostly 
pinninerved and alternate, and Malabathrum, with mostly triplinerved and opposite to 
subopposite leaves (hereinafter section Malabathrum is called section Cinnamomum, since it 
contains the type species of the genus [Greuter et al., 1994: article 22]). Fruit characters in 
Cinnamomum are as in many of the formerly considered American species of Phoebe; i.e. a berry 
seated on a cupule which bears the whole or partially persistent tepals on its rim. 
As suggested in the section name used by Meissner (1864) for the American species of 
Phoebe, most of them closely match the morphology of the fruits and leaves of the genus 
Cinnamomum, and already in the early fifties Kostermans (1952) supported the idea of reducing 
Phoebe to include just the Asiatic species, and placing the American species in another genus. 
Initially he thought some species should be moved to Persea and the rest to Cinnamomum 
(Kostermans, 1957), but later, anticipating a revision of the group, he transferred all the 
American species of Phoebe to Cinnamomum (Kostermans 1961, 1988). Nees (1836) recognized 
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