In recent years molecular sequencing and phylogenetic reconstruction techniques to hypothesise the evolution of groups of organisms have become increasingly important in the classification of plants. These techniques frequently help clarify formerly intractable classification problems and often highlight previously overlooked relationships between plants that make very good sense. Morphological characters that were previously thought not to be important sometimes turn out to be the characters that unify a particular group. Also characters that were formerly thought to unite a group of plants may be shown to have arisen many times in unrelated plants in response to particular evolutionary pressures.
These techniques were applied to Chirita and the results, perhaps unsurprisingly, led to the genus being divided into separate genera, each one not being particularly closely related to any of the others formerly placed within Chirita. All the known Chirita species were assigned to five existing, new or resurrected genera by Weber et al in 2011 (Damrongia, Henckelia, Liebegia, Microchirita and Primulina). Subsequent work by Middleton et al (2015) and Moller et al (2016) led to the establishment or enlargement of two additional genera, Chaiamaritia and Deinostigma respectively. The former involved the transfer from Henckelia of a former Chirita, and the latter of several former Chirita species, also from Henckelia. Inevitably the nomenclatural consequences of these changes were many but the resulting seven genera appear much more morphologically homogenous than the former Chirita.
The seven genera to which all species of (the former) Chirita have been assigned are Damrongia, Henckelia, Liebigia, Microchirita, Primulina, Chaimaritia and Deinostigma.
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