I was very lucky to travel to Fiji last month and successfully collect flowers of Degeneria vitiensis on the main island of Viti Levu. Since it was first described in 1942 by Bailey and Smith, family Degeneriaceae (with only two species, both endemic to Fiji) has played a major role in early theories on the origin of angiosperms and was long thought to be one of the most primitive families of flowering plants. We now know that Degeneria is well nested in the Magnoliidae clade (see Massoni et al. 2014) but it continues to be an essential taxon to understand early floral evolution. This collection thus represents a key contribution to project MAGNIPHY.
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