Eriocaulon
is a genus of c. 470 aquatic and wetland species of the monocot plant family Eriocaulaceae. It is widely distributed in Africa, Asia and America, with centres of species richness in the tropics. Most species of
Eriocaulon
grow in wetlands although some inhabit shallow rivers and streams with an apparent adaptive morphology of elongated submerged stems. In a previous molecular phylogenetic hypothesis,
Eriocaulon
was recovered as sister of the African endemic genus
Mesanthemum
. Several regional infrageneric classifications have been proposed for
Eriocaulon
. This study aims to critically assess the existing infrageneric classifications through phylogenetic reconstruction of infrageneric relationships, based on DNA sequence data of four chloroplast markers and one nuclear marker. There is little congruence between our molecular results and previous morphology-based infrageneric classifications. However, some similarities can be found, including Fyson’s sect.
Leucantherae
and Zhang’s sect.
Apoda
. Further phylogenetic studies, particularly focusing on less well sampled regions such as the Neotropics, will help provide a more global overview of the relationships in
Eriocaulon
and may enable suggesting the first global infrageneric classification.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1007/s10265-019-01129-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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