XVI International Botanical Congess

The evolutionary trends of 26 characters in the Campanulaceae were analyzed, with the Polemoniaceae used as the outgroup. Five primitiveness states were given to each character and a character primitiveness index was calculated for each genus. These index values order the most primitive genera of Campanulaceae as follows: Cyananthus, Codonopsis, Leptocodon, Wahlenbergia, Platycodon, Microcodon, Campanumoea, Musschia, Campanula, Cyclocodon, Echinocodon, Berenice, etc. Microcodon is endemic to the Cape Region, Musschia to the Madeira Islands, Berenice to the Mascarene Islands, and Wahlenbergia and Campanula are nearly cosmopolitan. All other genera, the three most primitive ones in particular, are endemic to, or mainly distributed in, East Asia. This interesting distribution pattern and its formation are discussed.