In this episode, we talk with Dr. Renerio Gentallan Jr. about his study on the taxonomic identity of "lagundi", a group of medicinal shrubs long confused with one another due to decades of conflicting nomenclatural revisions. Despite lagundi-based products generating hundreds of millions of pesos in sales in the Philippines, the exact species being used and studied has remained ambiguous, with some specimens historically misidentified even in national pharmacopeia records. Using complete chloroplast genome sequencing alongside morphological and statistical analyses of over 2,000 herbarium specimens, the study clarified the species boundaries within this complex. The findings support reinstating Vitex elmeri as a distinct species and describe a new species, Vitex arvensis. The new species is a hybrid between V. bicolor Willd. and V. elmeri Moldenke, and also proposed as a new endemic species to the Philippines.
📚Reference: Gentallan RP Jr, Sengun S, Bartolome MCB, Quiñones KJO, Coronado NB, Borromeo TH, Timog EBS. 2024. The Vitex trifolia complex (Lamiaceae) in the Philippines. PhytoKeys. 248:1–40.