Goeppertia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Marantaceae, native to the New World Tropics. It contains 246 accepted species, many of which were until recently assigned to Calathea.
Earlier taxonomic work
It was first described by Nees von Esenbeck in 1831, who erroneously erected another genus Goeppertia in 1836, which has now been synonymized with Endlicheria. In 1862 August Grisebach described another genus Goeppertia; this has now been synonymized with Bisgoeppertia. The genus name of Goeppertia is in honour of Heinrich Göppert (1800–1884), a German botanist and paleontologist.
The type species of Goeppertia was Goeppertia zebrina, in 1831, which had been described originally as Maranta zebrina, in 1817 by Sims and transferred to Goeppertia by Nees.
The original genus counted species such as Maranta bicolor, which Nees transferred to Goeppertia as G.bicolor (now synonym of Maranta cristata); Maranta spicata, which he transferred to Goeppertia as G.spicata (now Monotagma spicatum); or Goepperita blanda (now unplaced, not an accepted taxon).
Most of the species composing the old Goeppertia genus were then moved to different genera and the name Goeppertia was not retained in later work.
Later taxonomic treatment
The genus was resurrected in 2012 after a molecular study by Finn Borchsenius, Luz Stella Suarez and Linda Marie (Prince) MacKechnie on the genus Calathea , which had been discovered to be polyphyletic. Earlier studies like the molecular sampling by L.Andersson in 2001 already had shown that the genus was thought to be paraphyletic , but lacked taxon sampling to support an actual redefinition.
The 2012 studies showed that the broad Calathea genus had two, major, evolutionary lineage and needed to be reconsidered. The first included subgenus Calathea, the C.Lanicaulis group and the Sanblasia genus, while the second formed a strongly supported group.
As the type species for the Calathea genus was Calathea casupo (now synonym for Calathea lutea),...
