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Taxonomy of many species of Rhododendron from the Himalaya (four are seen flowering) is uncertain.

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The compatibility of two biological inoculants, Trichoderma harzianum, a mycoparasitic biological control fungus and Piriformospora indica, a root colonizing plantgrowth promoting endophytic fungus was evaluated using tissue cultured black pepper plantlets. We report, for the first time, the ability of P. indica to colonize black pepper, a perennial climber. T. harzianum inhibited the growth of P. indica in an in vitro dual culture plate assay. Simultaneous inoculation with both biological inoculants of tissue cultured black pepper plantlets negatively influenced root colonization by P. indica. However, when P. indica was applied initially followed 30 days later by T. harzianum, there was increased root colonization by the root endophyte P. indica and beneficial effects were found on the growth of the black pepper plants. The present study also showed that the efficacy of inoculation of the two fungal biological agents can be increased by sequential application of P. indica at the hardening stage followed by T. harzianum during transplanting into a soil-sand mixture.

Genus Ivalia Jacoby is characterized morphologically, and Amphimeloides Jacoby syn. nov. and Taizonia Chen syn. nov. are junior synonyms with it. Several Ivalia species are figured, including Ivalia bella (Chen) comb. nov., I. dorsalis (Jacoby) comb. nov., and I. viridipennis Jacoby. A new species of Ivalia from the Nilgiri Hills in south India, I. korakundah sp. nov., is described and illustrated, including the larvae. Larvae were associated with adults by sequencing a fragment of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase I. Larval morphology is discussed and compared with that of other flea beetles.

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We propose three most important measures for addressing the Linnaean shortfall in the Global South such as, a) completing the Grand Linnaean Enterprise; b) massification of taxonomy; and c) creating an enabling legal and regulatory milieu, which would be our best hold against the global biodiversity crisis.