XVI International Botanical Congess

Phylogeny and tribal circumscription are contentious issues within the Asteraceae due to the prevalence of morphological parallelisms. With emphasis on the Asteroideae, we explored phylogeny within the family using two non-coding chloroplast sequences, the trnL intron and trnL/trnF spacer. Phylogenetic analyses produced trees that are congruent with the results of prior morphological and molecular analyses. The Asteroideae are monophyletic, but the Cichorioideae are paraphyletic. The primary clades of the Cichorioideae are the Mutisieae-Cardueae, Liabeae-Vernonieae, and of the Asteroideae, the Inuleae-Plucheeae, Astereae-Anthemideae, Senecioneae-Gnaphalieae, and the Helianthoid clade (Helenieae, Heliantheae s.str. and Eupatorieae). The Inuleae-Plucheeae clade is sister to the remainder of the Asteroideae and the paraphyly of the Inuleae s.l. (Gnaphalieae, Inuleae s.str., and Plucheeae) is firmly supported.