Begonia of the Philippines

 

　　This book started from a discussion between the three editors, led by Prof. Rubite, in early 2021. The inspiration for the project came from Prof. Rubite’s extensive field campaign to locate and photograph the majority of species in sect. Baryandra from throughout the Philippines during her PhD research and beyond. Further impetus came from the publication of two photographic guides to the genus, to Bornean Begonia (Kiew et al. 2015) and Asian Begonia (Hughes et al. 2018a). These showed that tackling large parts of the incredible species diversity of Begonia in a book volume is achievable, even if the amount of time taken to produce and edit such a work was considerably underestimated at the time we started!

 

　　The production of the book became possible due to the team effort of many wonderful botanists from the Philippines and beyond, who contributed species vignettes and beautiful photographs. All of the contributors and editors have a fascination with Begonia, and we hope this comes across to the reader.

 

　　We note that the book covers about 70% of the Begonia species native to the Philippines. This highlights the work that still needs to be done to bring to light not only new species, but those described long ago which we hope are still extant near a waterfall or shady bank, waiting to be greeted by one of their many friends.

 

M. Hughes