Discovering Karima (Euphorbiaceae), a New Crotonoid Genus from West Tropical Africa Long Hidden within Croton.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27049519.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0152110 and PMC identifier 4822767.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Croton scarciesii (Euphorbiaceae-Crotonoideae), a rheophytic shrub from West Africa, is shown to have been misplaced in Croton for 120 years, having none of the diagnostic characters of that genus, but rather a set of characters present in no known genus of the family. Pollen analysis shows that the new genus Karima belongs to the inaperturate crotonoid group. Analysis of a concatenated molecular dataset combining trnL-F and rbcL sequences positioned Karima as sister to Neoholstia from south eastern tropical Africa in a well-supported clade comprised of genera of subtribes Grosserineae and Neoboutonieae of the inaperturate crotonoid genera. Several morphological characters support the relationship of Karima with Neoholstia, yet separation is merited by numerous characters usually associated with generic rank in Euphorbiaceae. Quantitative ecological data and a conservation assessment supplement illustrations and descriptions of the taxon.
Medical subject headings
- Euphorbiaceae
- Genes, Plant