Two years later, in 1995, the second meeting was organized at the National Botanic Garden of Belgium in Meise. But there was a long recess of eleven years before specialists from the KU Leuven, Belgium, took the initiative to organize the Third International Rubiaceae Conference in 2006.

Continuing with the spirit of establishing periodical meetings, this year, the Instituto de Biologia, UNAM, in collaboration with the Instituto de Ecología A. C., is honored to host the IV International Rubiaceae (Gentianales) Conference. We have selected Xalapa as the venue city for the meetings because we hope that you will make the most of your trip to Mexico and enjoy part of the richness of our country, not at all in terms of money, but rather in terms of cultural and biological diversity. We also kindly invite you to visit the National Herbarium of Mexico (MEXU), located at the National University of Mexico, in Mexico city, which holds the largest collection of dried plants in Latin America (more than 1,100,000 specimens) and has about 25,000 Rubiaceae herbarium specimens, mainly from Mexico. During the IV International Rubiaceae (Gentianales) Conference, participants may just attend the meeting or they may present topics such as taxonomy, phylogeny and classification, morphology and anatomy, floristics, ecology and biogeography within Rubiaceae or other Gentianales. We particularly encourage students to submit the results of their work.

Main Organizer:
Helga Ochoterena, Instituto de Biología, UNAM.

Local Organizers:
Victoria Sosa, Instituto de Ecología, A.C.
Teresa Terrazas, Instituto de Biológia, UNAM.

Organizing committee:
Petra De Block, National Botanic Garden of Belgium
Steven Dessein, National Botanic Garden of Belgium
Mary Endress, Institute of Systematic Botany, Zurich, Switzerland
Sylvain Razafimandimbison, Bergius Foundation, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Charlotte Taylor, Missouri Botanical Garden, USA.

Scientific committee:
Birgitta Bremer, Bergius Foundation, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Elsa L. Cabral, Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste, UNNE, Argentina
Elmar Robbrecht, National Botanic Garden of Belgium
Erik Smets, Laboratory of Plant Systematics, K.U.Leuven, Belgium & National Herbarium of the Netherlands