XVI International Botanical Congess

Anacardiaceae has a world wide distribution, mainly on tropical and subtropical zones,, however, their phytogeographic and phylogenetic relationships are poorly understood. A cladistic analysis based on wood anatomy characters of 62 genera and Burseraceae as the outgroup was performed using PAUP 3.1.1. and MacClade 3.0. Preliminary results support the idea of a southeast Asian origin for the family and suggest an early dispersion through several migration routes. Some of the american taxa have links with south east Asian taxa suggesting a dispersion route via the North hemisphere (southeast Asia-Europe-North America-South America), the fossil record supports this idea (e.g. Tapirira, Haplorhus) nevertheless, other genera seem to have arrived via the southern hemisphere (e.g. Cyrtocarpa) probably by southeast Asia-Africa-South America-North America.