On the occurrence of non‐axillary ovules in Tetraclinis articulata (Vahl) Mast. (Cupressaceae s.str.)

Abstract

The cone morphology in Tetraclinis was studied to elucidate the taxonomic position of the genus. A careful analysis of the cone development shows that the characters used as arguments for an affiliation within Callitroideae are superficial and of little taxonomic significance. The developmental patterns indicate a position of Tetraclinis within Cupressoideae. Tetraclinis displays ovules inserted directly at the distal end of the cone axis and not born in the axil of a seed scale as recently shown for Juniperus (Schulz et al. 2003) and Microbiota (Jagel & Stützel 2001b). The close relationship between Tetraclinis, Juniperus and Cupressus as suggested by Saxton (1913) based on embryological data, by Gadek & Quinn (1985) based on biflavones and by Gadek et al. (2000) based on DNS‐sequences is supported by the morphological data presented here. Conflicting morphological concepts or morphological trees (e.g. Gadek et al. 2000) are in parts weakly supported and suffer either from ambiguous coding of morphological data or are based on historical morphological errors. To calculate reliable morphological trees, however, requires data of similar quality and cannot be achieved by using data which are tailed to the use in effective diagnostic keys.

Tetraclinis articulata (vahl) masters: An insight into its ethnobotany, phytochemistry, toxicity, biocide and therapeutic merits

“…However, T. articulata is unique in this subfamily since all other species are found only in the southern hemisphere, whereas Tetraclinis spreads across the Mediterranean. It was also once classified as part of the genus Thuja L. and Widdringtonia Endl ( Jagel and Stützel, 2003 ; Sánchez-Gómez et al, 2013 ). Recent morphological and molecular studies confirmed the occurrence of T. articulata within the Cupressaceae family as the only species of the genus Tetraclinis Masters ( Jagel and Stützel, 2003 ; Sánchez-Gómez et al, 2013 ; Jlizi et al, 2018 ).…”

“…It was also once classified as part of the genus Thuja L. and Widdringtonia Endl ( Jagel and Stützel, 2003 ; Sánchez-Gómez et al, 2013 ). Recent morphological and molecular studies confirmed the occurrence of T. articulata within the Cupressaceae family as the only species of the genus Tetraclinis Masters ( Jagel and Stützel, 2003 ; Sánchez-Gómez et al, 2013 ; Jlizi et al, 2018 ). The common names and synonyms of the tree have been collected and listed in Table 1 .…”

AGAMOUS subfamily MADS-box genes and the evolution of seed cone morphology in Cupressaceae and Taxodiaceae

“…In contrast to Taxodiaceae, Cupressaceae seed cones lack morphologically distinguishable ovuliferous scales, or other ovule-bearing organs, and the ovules develop directly from the cone axis, usually in the axil of a bract or terminally at the apex of the cone (Takaso and Tomlinson 1989b;Tomlinson et al 1993;Tomlinson and Takaso 2002;Jagel and Stu¨tzel 2003;Schulz et al 2003). Florin suggested that the apparent lack of ovuliferous scales in Cupressaceae could be attributed to their complete fusion with the subtending sterile bracts (Florin 1951(Florin , 1954.…”