Identifying gaps in the photographic record of the vascular plant flora of the Americas.

Field photographs of plant species are crucial for research and conservation, but the lack of a centralized database makes them difficult to locate. We surveyed 25 online databases of field photographs and found that they harboured only about 53% of the approximately 125,000 vascular plant species of the Americas. These results reflect the urgent need for a centralized database that can both integrate and complete the photographic record of the world's flora.

Paleoaltingia gen. nov., a new genus of Altingiaceae from the Late Cretaceous of New Jersey.

Premise: Altingiaceae is a small family with a bimodal Northern Hemisphere distribution in eastern North America and eastern Asia, and a rich Cenozoic fossil record. The charcoalified fossil infructescence Paleoaltingia gen. nov.

52 million years old Eucalyptus flower sheds more than pollen grains.

Premise: Fossils provide fundamental evidence of the evolutionary processes that crafted today's biodiversity and consequently for understanding life on Earth. We report the finding of Myrtaceidites eucalyptoides pollen grains preserved within the anthers of a 52-million-year-old Eucalyptus flower collected at Laguna del Hunco locality of Argentinean Patagonia and discuss its implications in understanding the evolutionary history of the iconic Australian genus Eucalyptus.

Methods: Pollen grains were extracted from the flower's anthers and were then observed under light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.

Response to Comment on "Eocene Fagaceae from Patagonia and Gondwanan legacy in Asian rainforests".

Denk agree that we reported the first fossil Fagaceae from the Southern Hemisphere. We appreciate their general enthusiasm for our findings, but we reject their critiques, which we find misleading and biased. The new fossils unequivocally belong to , and substantial evidence supports our Southern Route to Asia hypothesis.

Eocene Fagaceae from Patagonia and Gondwanan legacy in Asian rainforests.

The beech-oak family Fagaceae dominates forests from the northern temperate zone to tropical Asia and Malesia, where it reaches its southern limit. We report early Eocene infructescences of , a diverse and abundant fagaceous genus of Southeast Asia, and co-occurring leaves from the 52-million-year-old Laguna del Hunco flora of southern Argentina. The fossil assemblage notably includes many plant taxa that associate with today.

Evolution of phytochemical diversity in Pilocarpus (Rutaceae).

The evolution of phytochemical diversity and biosynthetic pathways in plants can be evaluated from a phylogenetic and environmental perspective. Pilocarpus Vahl (Rutaceae), an economically important medicinal plant in the family Rutaceae, has a great diversity of imidazole alkaloids and coumarins. In this study, we used phylogenetic comparative methods to determine whether there is a phylogenetic signal for chemical traits across the genus Pilocarpus; this included ancestral reconstructions of continuous and discrete chemical traits.

Ecometabolomic Analysis of Wild Populations of (Rutaceae) Using Unimodal Analyses.

Studies examining the diversity of plant specialized metabolites suggest that biotic and abiotic pressures greatly influence the qualitative and quantitative diversity found in a species. Large geographic distributions expose a species to a great variety of environmental pressures, thus providing an enormous opportunity for expression of environmental plasticity. , a neotropical genus of Rutaceae, is rich in alkaloids, terpenoids, and coumarins, and is the only commercial source of the alkaloid pilocarpine for the treatment of glaucoma.

Mid-Cretaceous angiosperm radiation and an asterid origin of bilaterality: diverse and extinct "Ericales" from New Jersey.

Premise Of The Study: Numerous fossils from the Upper Cretaceous have been confidently placed within modern crown groups. Many 95-75 Myr-old taxa, however, including the taxon described herein, do not fit well with known extant crown or stem groups. Understanding such fossils and their possible affinities would certainly enhance our understanding of the circumstances involved in a major eudicot radiation.

A late Cretaceous fagalean inflorescence preserved in amber from New Jersey.

Premise Of The Study: An inflorescence with three pistillate flowers in amber from the early Upper Cretaceous (Turonian, ~90-94 million years ago) of central New Jersey represents the oldest known flowers with features present in an early stem complex of the Fagales. The inflorescence has characteristics of Nothofagaceae, but also has strikingly distinct characters that suggest it is intermediate between Nothofagus and other Fagales. This intermediacy is consistent with its northern hemisphere distribution.

A mosaic Lauralean flower from the Early Cretaceous of Myanmar.

Premise Of The Study: The floral history of early angiosperms is far from complete. The fossil discussed here has the potential to expand our knowledge of timing, reproductive biology, and paleobiogeography in early angiosperms.

Methods: Cutting-edge methodologies in CT scanning in conjunction with tomography software have opened new possibilities for discovering details in amber-preserved fossils that were inaccessible for meaningful study in the past.

Climate reconstruction analysis using coexistence likelihood estimation (CRACLE): a method for the estimation of climate using vegetation.

Unlabelled: •

Premise Of The Study: Plant distributions have long been understood to be correlated with the environmental conditions to which species are adapted. Climate is one of the major components driving species distributions. Therefore, it is expected that the plants coexisting in a community are reflective of the local environment, particularly climate.

On homology.

Homology in cladistics is reviewed. The definition of important terms is explicated in historical context. Homology is not synonymous with synapomorphy: it includes symplesiomorphy, and Hennig clearly included both plesiomorphy and synapomorphy as types of homology.

Oldest known Eucalyptus macrofossils are from South America.

The evolutionary history of Eucalyptus and the eucalypts, the larger clade of seven genera including Eucalyptus that today have a natural distribution almost exclusively in Australasia, is poorly documented from the fossil record. Little physical evidence exists bearing on the ancient geographical distributions or morphologies of plants within the clade. Herein, we introduce fossil material of Eucalyptus from the early Eocene (ca.

Pentapetalum trifasciculandricus gen. et sp. nov., a thealean fossil flower from the Raritan Formation, New Jersey, USA (Turonian, Late Cretaceous).

The study of fossil flowers in the last 25 years has greatly increased our understanding of angiosperm diversification. Following that tradition, we here describe a new fossil taxon from the Late Cretaceous of New Jersey, Pentapetalum trifasciculandricus Martínez-Millán, Crepet et Nixon gen. et sp.

An extinct calycanthoid taxon, Jerseyanthus calycanthoides , from the Late Cretaceous of New Jersey.

A new fossil genus and species, Jerseyanthus calycanthoides, is described from the Late Cretaceous (Turonian, ∼90 MYBP) Raritan Formation of New Jersey. Flowers have cupulate receptacles bearing imbricately arranged tepals that subtend a series of recurved tepals near the cup margin. Recurved tepal subtends a "stamen-staminode" pair, that includes a laminar stamen with ramified connective extensions, and an outer staminode.

Fossil evidence and phylogeny: the age of major angiosperm clades based on mesofossil and macrofossil evidence from Cretaceous deposits.

The fossil record has played an important role in the history of evolutionary thought, has aided the determination of key relationships through mosaics, and has allowed an assessment of a number of ecological hypotheses. Nonetheless, expectations that it might accurately and precisely mirror the progression of taxa through time seem optimistic in light of the many factors potentially interfering with uniform preservation. In view of these limitations, attempts to use the fossil record to corroborate phylogenetic hypotheses based on extensive comparisons among extant taxa may be misplaced.

A comparative flower and fruit anatomical study of Quercus acutissima, a biennial-fruiting oak from the Cerris group (Fagaceae).

A developmental series of flowers and fruits of Quercus acutissima (subgenus Quercus section Cerris) was collected over a growing season and examined for an intersectional, comparative anatomical study. Pistillate flowers of the current growing season, each consisting of a pistil with three long, slightly recurved styles, six tepals, and an inconspicuous ovary subtended by a few cycles of cupule scales, emerged in early May, were pollinated by mid-May, and then were quiescent for the remainder of the growing season. Flowers from the previous growing season resumed growth in mid-May, each forming three locules delimited by septa in the ovary, with two bitegmic, epitropous ovules developing in each locule.

Divisestylus gen. nov. (aff. Iteaceae), a fossil saxifrage from the Late Cretaceous of New Jersey, USA.

Fossilized flowers and fruits from the Upper Cretaceous (Turonian, ca. 90 million years [my] before present) Raritan Formation of New Jersey are described as the new genus Divisestylus with two species, D. brevistamineus and D.

Triuridaceae fossil flowers from the Upper Cretaceous of New Jersey.

We report here on a series of fossil flowers exhibiting a mosaic of characters present in the extant monocot family Triuridaceae. Phylogenetic analyses of morphological data from a broad sample of extant monocots confirm the affinities of the fossils with modern Triuridaceae. The fossil flowers were collected from outcrops of the Raritan Formation (Upper Cretaceous, ∼90 million years before present), New Jersey, USA.

Archaefructaceae, a new basal angiosperm family.

Archaefructaceae is proposed as a new basal angiosperm family of herbaceous aquatic plants. This family consists of the fossils Archaefructus liaoningensis and A. sinensis sp.

On the Other "Phylogenetic Systematics".

De Queiroz and Gauthier, in a serial paper, argue that biological taxonomy is in a sad state, because taxonomists harbor "widely held belief" systems that are archaic and insufficient for modern classification, and that the bulk of practicing taxonomists are essentialists. Their paper argues for the scrapping of the current system of nomenclature, but fails to provide specific rules for the new "Phylogenetic Systematics"-instead we have been presented with a vague and sketchy manifesto based upon the assertion that "clades are individuals" and therefore must be pointed at with proper names, rather than diagnosed by synapomorphies. They claim greater stability for "node pointing," yet even their own examples show that the opposite is true, and their node pointing system is only more stable in a purely metaphysical sense detached from characters, evidence, usage of names, and composition of groups.

The Parsimony Ratchet, a New Method for Rapid Parsimony Analysis.

The Parsimony Ratchet is presented as a new method for analysis of large data sets. The method can be easily implemented with existing phylogenetic software by generating batch command files. Such an approach has been implemented in the programs DADA (Nixon, 1998) and Winclada (Nixon, 1999).