XVI International Botanical Congess

Clades differ in their diversity, a distinctive form of which involves the recurrence of character states (homoplasy). Homoplasies-parallelisms and reversals-arise partly because of biases in the evolutionary transformation of ontogenies. Patterns of floral diversity associated with homoplasies introduced during evolutionary changes in organogenesis, synorganization, and allometry will be discussed. Organogenetic transformations are prone to meristic homoplasies, and all organ series can be impacted. Homoplasies introduced in association with the origin of synorganization are especially interesting because of their role in elaborative diversification. Homoplastic losses of synorganization are relatively uncommon compared to gains. Allometric homoplasies are common, especially in meristically conservative clades.