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Tribe Linnaeeae is a diverse group disjunctly distributed in the northern hemisphere between China and Japan and Mexico. The tribe consists of shrubs with showy flowers that are important in the horticultural industry. We present a detailed monograph of tribe Linnaeeae that includes descriptions, identification keys, botanical plates with line drawings and photographs, distribution maps, morphometric analysis of key characters, and discussion on evolution, cultivation and conservation. Twenty species, as well as five new varieties and four new forms, are recognised in six genera. Forty heterotypic names (not including the 218 names for Linnaea borealis) are listed as synonyms. 1,973 specimens were studied and databased from 13 herbaria (A, BM, CAS, E, GZAC, IBSC, KUN, KYO, MAK, PE, TNS, TOFO and TI). The Kolkwitzia–Dipelta–Diabelia clade radiated from the Qinling Mountain Range of China and is disjunctly distributed in Japan. The Linnaea–Vesalea clade may have migrated through the Bering Land Bridge and radiated along the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico. Abelia, which is most diverse in China, evolved in relation to the formation of the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau.

When a natural group of plants has over many years been comprehensively and intensively studied, a large body of data, analysis and evaluation has accumulated. It is in the nature of such work on the taxonomy of such a group that this information is to be found scattered in various publications, such as research papers, checklists, monographs, Floras and other compilations. As time and research progress, some of this information will become outdated and superseded by new publications, but other information remains current and valuable. To give a review of this can provide us not only with a guide to this resource, but also with an introduction to the group in question. It may stimulate new research, as inevitably we will find that all has not been said and done, even about a group so well studied as the conifers. I hope that this paper will meet these aims.