Platydesma is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s in family Rutaceae

Rutaceae

Rutaceae, commonly known as the rue or citrus family, is a family of flowering plants, usually placed in the order Sapindales.Species of the family generally have flowers that divide into four or five parts, usually with strong scents...

. Evidence from 2009 indicates that Platydesma is nested within the related genus Melicope

Melicope

Melicope is a genus of about 230 species of shrubs and trees in the family Rutaceae, occurring from the Hawaiian Islands across the Pacific to tropical Asia, Australia and New Zealand...

and is sister to all Hawaiian Melicope species. And while Melicope species are dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

 (individual plants only bear either male or female flowers), the flowers of Platydesma are hermaphroditic

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....

, suggesting a rare evolutionary reversion away from dioecy in Platydesma.

Species include:

• Platydesma remyi
  Platydesma remyi
  Hawai'i pilo kea is a species of plant in the Rutaceae family. It is endemic to the island of Hawaii. It is threatened by habitat loss.-Source:* World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998. . Downloaded on 23 August 2007....
  
  
• Platydesma rostrata
  Platydesma rostrata
  Platydesma rostrata is a rare species of flowering plant in the citrus family known by the common name pilo kea lau li'i. It is endemic to Hawaii, where there are only about 100 individuals remaining on island of Kauai. It was federally listed as an endangered species of the United States in...
  
  
• Platydesma spathulata