During the environmental impact study for a proposed nickel mine near Weda Bay on Halmahera in North Moluccas (Maluku Utara Province), Indonesia, two unknown Euphorbiaceae were discovered. Morphological comparisons and molecular phylogenetic analyses using four markers (plastid trnL‐F and rbcL, and nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer and external transcribed spacer) indicated that they should be recognized as constituting a new, distinct genus of two species, which are described and illustrated here as Weda fragarioides and Weda lutea. The new taxa are members of the Australasian tribe Ricinocarpeae in subfamily Crotonoideae, and they are most closely related to Alphandia. In contrast with the otherwise mostly sclerophyllous Ricinocarpeae, Weda possesses stellate to dendritic hairs, large, long‐petiolate, glandular leaves, and inflorescences with a pair of large, leafy, subopposite bracts. The two narrowly distributed species are distinguished from each other by vegetative and floral features, molecular data, and elevational preferences. Leaf elemental analysis of Weda indicated manganese, but not nickel, accumulation. Newly resolved generic relationships and potential morphological synapomorphies within Crotonoideae are discussed, and the circumscription of Ricinocarpeae is expanded from 7 to 11 genera.

Several groups within tribe Phyllantheae (Phyllanthaceae) formed, independently, an (obligate) pollination mutualism with Epicephala moths, which originally had been parasitic. In this pollination system, female moths actively collect pollen from staminate flowers and deposit it on the stigma of pistillate flowers, after which they place at least one egg in or against the ovary. The high pollination rate makes the system beneficial for the plants, whereas the larvae are provided with food (part of the developing seeds) and some protection against predation. Qualitative comparisons are made between non-moth-pollinated lineages, used as outgroups and various, independently moth-pollinated Phyllantheae clades, used as ingroups, thereby looking for parallel developments. The flowers of both sexes of various groups display similar, convergent morphological adaptations to the pollination system, likely to secure the obligate relationship and to improve efficiency. Sepals in both sexes, free or partly to highly connate, are commonly upright and form a narrow tube. The staminate flowers often have united, vertical stamens with the anthers along the androphore or on top of the androphore. Pistillate flowers generally reduce the stigmatic surface, either by making the stigmas shorter or by uniting them into a cone with a small opening at the top for pollen deposition. Less obvious is the reduction of the stigmatic papillae; these are often present in non-moth-pollinated taxa, but absent in the moth-pollinated species. The most diverging, parallel adaptations to moth pollination are currently found in the Palaeotropics, whereas in the Neotropics, some groups continue to also be pollinated by other insect groups and are morphologically less changed.

The variability of Ostodes paniculata var. paniculata, the only representative of the genus in Malesia, is described. The variety and the species have a disjunct distribution as they are found in India to Southern China and the Southeast Asian mainland, Sumatra and Java. The variability in leaf glands, domatia, sepals, and seeds shows geoclines. Depending on one's view the genus has two more varieties or species, both more hairy and occurring from N Thailand to China or in China only. Their nomenclature is provided, as is the nomenclature of the many excluded species, once part of a larger generic concept of Ostodes, but now mainly part of Dimorphocalyx and Paracroton. Typical for Ostodes are the red latex, the ovate, rather large serrate leaf blades with basally two raised glands, the paniculate inflorescences with relatively large flowers with petals and many (nearly) free stamens, and the large woody fruits.

Dalechampia is a mainly South American genus of generally climbing shrubs with usually sharp stiff trichomes in some of the inflorescence parts. The bisexual inflorescences are very condensed and subtended by two, often showy, large bracts. The three pistillate flowers are separate from the staminate subinflorescence (both groups with their own bracts). The staminate subinflorescence contains groups of staminodial-like bractlets that provide resin for female bees or fragrance for male bees. In west Malesia (Sumatra and Java) one indigenous species is found, the climbing D. bidentata, and occasionally cultivars of the subshrub D. spathulata.