XVI International Botanical Congess

Seeds and fruits in the Menispermaceae display readily discernible features that have served as principal taxonomic tools used to delimit genera and assign them to tribes. Menisperm generic and tribal classifications have not been without conflict, and instability has characterized the taxonomic history of this family. This project focuses on the circumscription of Cocculus by testing the monophyly of this genus using molecular and morphological data. The chloroplast trnL intron was amplified for several species of Cocculus and representatives of all eight menisperm tribes. Cladograms were constructed using maximum parsimony and considering different indel coding strategies. All analyses indicate that Cocculus is not monophyletic, with some species more closely related to other genera included in the analysis.