The mustard family (Brassicaceae) is a scientifically and economically important family, containing the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and numerous crop species that feed billions worldwide. Despite its relevance, most phylogenetic trees of the family are incompletely sampled and often contain poorly supported branches. Here, we present the most complete Brassicaceae genus-level family phylogenies to date (Brassicaceae Tree of Life or BrassiToL) based on nuclear (1,081 genes, 319 of the 349 genera; 57 of the 58 tribes) and plastome (60 genes, 265 genera; all tribes) data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: The pacaya palm is a dioecious neotropical palm species that is exploited in Latin America for its male inflorescence, which is edible when immature. It is cultivated, in a non-intensive manner, in Guatemala, where a morphotype occurs that produces much larger, more highly branched inflorescences compared with wild palms. We sought to identify molecular factors underlying this phenotypic divergence, which is likely to be a product of domestication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(Arecaceae, Calamoideae) is the most diverse genus of African palms with around 20 species. Two new species from Cameroon and Gabon, Mogue, Sonké & Couvreur, and Mogue, Sonké & Couvreur, are described and illustrated. Their affinities are discussed and the conservation status of each species is assessed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral neotropical orchid genera have been proposed as being sexually deceptive; however, this has been carefully tested in only a few cases. The genus Telipogon has long been assumed to be pollinated by male tachinid flies during pseudocopulatory events but no detailed confirmatory reports are available. Here, we have used an array of methods to elucidate the pollination mechanism in Telipogon peruvianus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCopernicia and Washingtonia are two genera of the Trachycarpeae for which no subtribal classification has been proposed, mainly because of the lack of resolution in phylogenetic studies. Morphology and anatomy of flowers whithin Coryphoideae have proven useful for taxa delimitation and supporting relationships among their members. A description of the morphological and anatomical structure of flowers of C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPremise Of The Study: Most palm systematists were surprised when molecular evidence pointed to a sister group relationship between the tribe Ceroxyleae and the phytelephantoid palms. The latter comprises three genera of morphological aberrant palms that have previously been considered a subfamily of their own. Here we present the results of a detailed study of the floral structure and development of the wax palm, Ceroxylon ceriferum, which aims at revealing derived traits shared by the sister tribes Ceroxyleae and Phytelepheae.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMorphology and development of the female flowers in Geonoma interrupta are described and compared with other taxa within Arecaceae. Inflorescences are pleiothyrses. Cincinni are immersed in pits and arranged according to the Fibonacci pattern along the rachillae.
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