ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 5889
Poster No. = 645


SYSTEMATICS OF ALLOPLECTUS (GESNERIACEAE)


John L. Clark. George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052.


The genus Alloplectus (Gesneriaceae) is currently composed of 74 named species, but preliminary studies indicate that many of these published names are synonyms, and numerous other species are undescribed. Alloplectus ranges from Central America to Peru with a few disjunct taxa in the Lesser Antilles and is most diverse in western Ecuador and Colombia. The plants are a conspicuous component of the understory vegetation in lowland and transitional tropical forests throughout the Andes. Fieldwork in Ecuador suggests that some species hybridize and show a great amount of morphological and color variation. Despite its ubiquitous distribution and common occurrence throughout the neotropics, most studies within the genus have been limited to single species descriptions. Preliminary cladistic analyses based on morphological data suggest that this genus is paraphyletic within the tribe Episceae.


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