INTRODUCTION Head of Study Program 3. Dean of the Graduate School

I. INTRODUCTION

The Annonaceae is a pantropical family with about 130 genera and 2.300 species. The family is known in Indonesia under the name ”Sirsak-sirsakan”. It is confined mostly to humid tropical lowland forests. They are abundant common in Asia, Africa, Central and South America and few in Australia. Two related genera Asimina and Deeringothamnus occur in warm temperate North-East America. In Malesia Annonaceae is abundant in the low altitude and becomes scarce at about above 600 meters elevation Sinclair 1955 and Kessler 1993. 47 out of 130 genera of the family occur in Malesia, including genus Popowia. The genus Popowia was firstly published by Stephano Endlicher in the Genera Plantarum secundum Ordines Naturales page 831 in the year of 1839. In 1842 in Walp. Repert. 1, page 74, he published Popowia pisocarpa to revise Guatteria pisocarpa Blume in 1825, which is written in Bijdragen tot de Flora van Nederlandsch Indie page 21 and Sprengel also published this name in Systema Vegetabilium Vol. IV Part II, page 214.28 in 1827 as a basionym. Other species of Popowia were published by Miquel 1865 namely, P. affinis Sumatra, P. cuspidata Java, P hirta Sumatra, P. novoguineensis New Guinea and P. rufula Borneo. In 1855, Hooker and Thomson published Popowia ramosissima Malay Peninsula. Later in 1872, they published again seven species of Popowia namely P. beddomeana, P. foetida, P. helferi, P. nervifolia, P. pauciflora, P. ramosissima, and P. tomentosa. In 1885, Scheffer published four species of Popowia namely, P. bancana Sumatra, P. beccarii New Guinea, P. papuana New Guinea and P. parvifolia New Guinea. In 1893, King published twelve species from Malay Peninsula namely, P. foetida, P. fusca, P. helferi, P. hookeri, P. kurzii, P. nervifolia, P. nitida, P. pauciflora, P. perakensis, P. ramosissima, P. tomentosa and P. velutina. In 1901, Lauterback K. Schumman described P. cyanocarpa New Guinea. In 1908, Merrill described P. polyandra Philippine and in 1921, he described P. lanceolata Philippine. Later in 1923, he removed P. polyandra from Philippines to P. pisocarpa. In 1912, Diels described namely, P. schefferiana and P. pachypetala from New Guinea. In 1915, he again described namely, P. clavata and P. platyphylla from New Guinea. In 1929, he described Popowia polytricha New Guinea. Finally, in 1931 he described P. odoardi Borneo. In 1913, Ridley published five species of Popowia namely, P hirta, P. novoguineensis P. pisocarpa, P. ramosissima and P. tomentosa. In 1922, he published ten species of Popowia namely, P. foetida, P. fusca, P. nervifolia, P. nervosa, P. pauciflora, P. perakensis, P. pumila, P. ramosissima, P. tomentosa and P. velutina. Later in 1926, he published again P. rufescent. Finally, in 1955, Sinclair published six species and one variety of Popowia from Malay Peninsula namely, P. fusca, P. pauciflora, P. perakensis, P. pisocarpa, P. tomentosa, P. tomentosa var. crinita and P. velutina, and removed Popowia affinis, P. ramosissima, P. rufescens and P. rufula to P. pisocarpa and P. foetida to Neouvaria foetida, Popowia nervifolia to Trivalvaria macrophylla, Popowia nervosa to Trivalvaria nervosa, Popowia pumila to Trivalvaria pumila. Although the genus has a long history, some of the species remain poorly known and have some constraints, leading to difficulties in identification. For example P. pisocarpa having various pubescent forms which are subjected to be confused with other species. Therefore, more collections are required to understand the species and to differ with others. In fact, Malesia has several locally distributed species and by more detailed collection, it will probably result in the collection of undescribed taxa. Unfortunately we still have a poor understanding of the taxonomy of several species in Malesia, because several species are known from only one or two collections. In this research a detailed examination was made on the taxonomy of Popowia in Malesia based on morphological characters of all the known Malesian species. The aim of this study is to provide better information of the diversity of the genus Popowia in Malesia.

II. LITERATURES REVIEW