Morphological phylogenetics of Puya subgenus Puya (Bromeliaceae)

Abstract

Puya, a large genus mostly from South America, has been taxonomically divided into two subgenera: Puyopsis and Puya. The latter includes only eight species distributed mainly in Chile, extending to Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. The species of subgenus Puya are recognized by the presence of a sterile apex of the inflorescence branches, whereas those of subgenus Puyopsis have fertile flowers all along the branches. The objectives of this article were to determine whether this diagnostic character was synapomorphic for subgenus Puya, and to explore the relationships between its species. Parsimony analyses were performed for 43 taxa and 93 morphological characters, 87 of which were discrete and six continuous. In the analysis that included all characters, a single most parsimonious tree was found that supported subgenus Puya by two synapomorphic character states, including the diagnostic character of a sterile inflorescence branch apex and a blooming pattern in which flowers open gradually from base to apex. The trees were better supported when the continuous characters were included. Further studies are suggested to resolve the infrageneric classification of Puya and the relationships of the species belonging to subgenus Puya.

Insights into the Evolution of <I>Pitcairnia</I> (Pitcairnioideae-Bromeliaceae), based on Morphological Evidence

“…We found a high proportion of homoplasies, evaluated through the two indices (CI and RI), the large number of homoplastic synapomorphies, and the low support values of clades obtained with the bootstrap analysis. This situation is recurrent in phylogenies of this family based on morphological characters (Forzza 2001;Faria et al 2004Faria et al , 2010Hornung-leoni and Sosa 2008;Almeida et al 2009;Monteiro 2009), and was expected because of the low number of coded characters in comparison to the molecular data (Bremer 1988). Recent radiation (Schulte et al 2005;Givnish et al 2011) and hybridization Palma-Silva et al 2011;Versieux et al 2012) in the family also help to explain our results.…”

Morphological Phylogenetics of Quesnelia (Bromeliaceae, Bromelioideae)

“…This is reflected in the low consistency index of the tree (CI = 0.31). High indices of homoplasy are recorded in cladistic analyses of different groups of Bromeliaceae based on morphological data ( Forzza 2001 ;Costa 2002 ;Tardivo 2002 ;Faria et al 2004 ;Faria 2006 ;Sousa 2004 ;Sousa et al 2007 ;Hornung-Leoni and Sosa 2008 ). The use of anatomical and palynological characters did not increase the consistency indices (CI), retention index (RI), or the rescaled consistency index (RC).…”

Total evidence phylogeny of Pontederiaceae (Commelinales) sheds light on the necessity of its recircumscription and synopsis of Pontederia L.

“…Perianth-coiling at post-anthesis seems to be poorly documented in the literature for most Angiosperm families and more so in the monocots. It is known to occur in the monocots only in the distantly related Bromeliaceae (Poales), being characteristic to some genera of subfamilies Pitcairnioideae and Puyoideae (Smith et al 1998; Hornung-Leoni and Sosa 2008). In Commelinales, the persistent perianth is marcescent in Philydraceae, Haemodoraceae and Hanguanaceae, while in Commelinaceae, the sepals are marcescent and the petals are deliquescent (Pellegrini, pers.…”