Gastonia is a formerly accepted genus of plants in the ivy and ginseng family, Araliaceae. It had been known as an unnatural group, but was recognized as late as 2010, when its nine species were distributed to four different subgenera of the large genus Polyscias. Because the genus Gastonia is now obsolete, its species are herein referred to by their names in Polyscias. The species that constituted Gastonia are mostly island endemics, with Madagascar and New Guinea being the largest land masses on which any of them naturally occur. Gastonia had a disjunct distribution, with three species from the Seychelles, three more from the Mascarenes, one from Madagascar and the Comoro Islands, and two distributed from Malesia to the Solomon Islands. Gastonia is a genus of small to large size trees. It shares with related genera, the lack of an articulation on the pedicel, below the flower. It is distinguished from Reynoldsia, Munroidendron, and Tetraplasandra by the radiating style arms that persist on the fruit. Species Listed below are the nine species placed in Gastonia by Frodin and Govaerts (2003). Names in Polyacias are from Lowry and Plunkett (2010). Polyscias crassa (= Gastonia crassa) Polyscias cutispongia (= Gastonia cutispongia) Polyscias duplicata (= Gastonia duplicata) Polyscias maraisiana (= Gastonia elegans, Gastonia mauritiana) Polyscias lionnetii (= Gastonia lionnetii) Polyscias rodriguesiana (= Gastonia rodriguesiana) Polyscias sechellarum (= Gastonia sechellarum) P. sechellarum var. contracta P. sechellarum var. curiosae P. sechellarum var. sechellarum Polyscias serratifolia (= Gastonia serratifolia) Polyscias spectabilis (= Gastonia spectabilis) Notes on selected species Polyscias spectabilis is from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It sometimes exceeds in height, and is the tallest member of Araliaceae. Like most members of Polyscias, P. spectabilis is sparingly branched, sometimes even palm-like in form, at least when young. Mature individuals of P. spectabilis are sometimes unbranched for 3/4 of the height of the tree. Hermann Harms erected the monotypic genus Peekeliopanax for it in 1926, but was not followed by other authors. The type species for Gastonia is Gastonia cutispongia (now Polyscias cutispongia). It is a tall, smooth tree with spongy bark. It is native to Réunion and sometimes planted there, but it has become very rare. Polyscias maraisiana is endemic to Mauritius and was cultivated in Europe in the 19th century, but has not been seen there since that time. It was considered exotic on account of its strikingly heteroblastic leaves. Polyscias maraisiana has