Hedyotis
genus of plants
Hedyotis (starviolet) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. Many species of this genus such as Hedyotis biflora, H. corymbosa and H. diffusa are well known medicinal plants. Hedyotis is native to tropical and subtropical Asia and to islands of the northwest Pacific. It comprises about 115 species. The type species for the genus is Hedyotis fruticosa.
Hedyotis was named by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 in Species Plantarum. This generic name is derived from two Greek words, hedys, "sweet", and otos, "ear", in reference to the sweet-scented, ear-shaped leaves of some species.
Taxonomy
Hedyotis was formerly defined very broadly by some authors, and included species now placed in Oldenlandia, Oldenlandiopsis, Houstonia, Kadua, and other genera. It is now circumscribed more narrowly, as a monophyletic group that is closely related to Agathisanthemum.
The genus Pleiocraterium was erected by Bremekamp with Hedyotis verticillaris moved to it as P. verticillare along with the species P. plantaginifolium from Sri Lanka, P. sumatranum and P. gentianifolium, both of Sumatra.
“Hedyotis” enters the record as genus of plants. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hedyotis, genus and plants can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Hedyotis” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hedyotis, genus and plants provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5222029. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1753.
Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hedyotis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.