ABSTRACT:

Flora Malesiana is a systematic account of the flora of Malesia, the plant-geographical unit spanning seven countries in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, Timor Leste, and Papua New Guinea. The Araceae is one of the larger plant families of Malesia, currently comprising 42 described genera and, conservatively, about 1200 species. A substantial proportion of Malesian aroid species are either only recently named, or have yet to be formally described. Despite encouraging progress with regional monographic accounts in the1990s and early 2000s, notably for Alocasia, Schismatoglottis, Pothos, Epipremnum, and Rhaphidophora, the intervening years, marked by a significant increase in field-based research, have revealed an extraordinary wealth of novel diversity such that none of the terrestrial and rheophytic genera can be currently be considered adequately known. Highlighting increases in described species in the past 15 years, and drawing on the example of the recently described genus Fenestratarum, reasons why Flora Malesiana Araceae is not currently practicable are enumerated, and practicable alternatives proffered.