MCDADE, LUCINDA A.1*, THOMAS F. DANIEL2, KEVIN BALKWILL3, and ALISSA M. MARTIN4. 1Department of Botany, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Ben Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103 USA; 2Department of Botany, California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 94118 USA; 3Moss Herbarium, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; 4Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA. - Delimitation and subdivision of "Justicioids" (Acanthaceae, Justicieae).
Within the diverse (>2,000 species) and morphologically disparate
lineage Justicieae, "justicioids" (i.e., members of
Justicia and related genera in both the New and Old Worlds) are
monophyletic. These plants share a number of morphological traits
(e.g., rugulate corollas) such that this result is not unexpected. Our
earlier results, however, unexpectedly show that the highly apomorphic
Diclipterinae are also part of this group. As traditionally defined,
Diclipterinae lack the morphological traits that link
"justicioids" and thus have not previously been associated
with them. Further, Diclipterinae are sister to New World
"justicioids," and this last group is monophyletic. Old
World "justicioids" are apparently not monophyletic; most
are placed as a series of lineages basal to New World
"justicioids" + Diclipterinae; but others are more closely
related to Diclipterinae than to other "justicioids." We
here test these hypotheses of relationships using substantially
expanded taxon sampling and the addition of sequences from the
chloroplast trnT-trnL spacer. Specifically, we test (1) the hypothesis
that New World "justicioids" are monophyletic by adding
representatives of all infrageneric taxa of Justicia and (2)
the idea that OW "justicioids" are not monophyletic, again
by substantially increasing our sample of infrageneric taxa of
Justicia and related genera. This last permits us to identify
the "justicioids" that are most closely related to
Diclipterinae and to explore the morphological and cytological
evidence for this relationship. Finally, we identify monophyletic
sublineages of "justicioids," with an emphasis on Old World
plants.
Key words: ", Acanthaceae, Diclipterinae, Justicia, Justicieae, Justicioids, Phylogenetics