Taxonomic and ecological appraisal of Ixora johnsonii Hook.F.

Johnson collected a shrub from Wennamala, near Cochin on 13thFebruary1865, with a collection number 1066/62. Ramaswamy also collected samespecies with collection number 1560, without date and locality. Bothcollectors were never published their collection but subsequently theirspecimens reached KEW herbarium. Later, during his magnificent work onIndian floristics, Hooker (1880) described the Johnson�s collection asIxorajohnsoniiin his Flora of British India, 3:139. Gamble (1921), Mohanan(1984) and Hussain and Paul (1989) also reported the species frommidlands of Kerala state. Danet al. (1997) conducted a scrutiny and clearedthe taxonomic equivocalness concerning the identity of this species andSasidharan (1998) reported from the Periyar Tiger reserve. Recently, theconservation status and distribution range ofI. johnsoniiwas analysed byPrasanthkumar and Sujanapal (2008). However, due to many misidentifiedspecimens, the taxonomic and nomenclature ambiguity on this species stillexists and nothing on the population structure known. We conducted ascrutiny along the midland regions of the state and found this shrub in therubber plantations of Kooropada, Kottayam district. The habitat andecology of this critically endangered species were discussed in this paper. Ashort description, citation and nomenclature notes of this species alsoappended.