Kenneth J. Wurdack 2,4 and Charles C. Davis
American Journal of Botany 96(8): 1551–1570. 2009. M ALPIGHIALES PHYLOGENETICS: GAINING GROUND ON ONE OF THE MOST RECALCITRANT CLADES IN THE ANGIOSPERM TREE OF LIFE 1 Kenneth J. Wurdack 2,4 and Charles C. Davis3,4 2 Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012 NMNH MRC-166, Washington, District of Columbia 20013-7012 USA; and 3 Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University Herbaria, 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 USA The eudicot order Malpighiales contains ~16 000 species and is the most poorly resolved large rosid clade. To clarify phyloge- netic relationships in the order, we used maximum likelihood, Bayesian, and parsimony analyses of DNA sequence data from 13 gene regions, totaling 15 604 bp, and representing all three genomic compartments (i.e., plastid: atpB , matK , ndhF, and rbcL ; mitochondrial: ccmB , cob , matR , nad1B-C , nad6, and rps3; and nuclear: 18S rDNA, PHYC, and newly developed low-copy EMB2765 ). Our sampling of 190 taxa includes representatives from all families of Malpighiales. These data provide greatly in- creased support for the recent additions of Aneulophus , Bhesa , Centroplacus , Ploiarium , and Raffl esiaceae to Malpighiales; sister relations of Phyllanthaceae + Picrodendraceae, monophyly of Hypericaceae, and polyphyly of Clusiaceae. Oxalidales + Huaceae, followed by Celastrales are successive sisters to Malpighiales. Parasitic Raffl esiaceae, which produce the world’ s largest fl owers, are confi rmed as embedded within a paraphyletic Euphorbiaceae. Novel fi ndings show a well-supported placement of Ctenolopho- naceae with Erythroxylaceae + Rhizophoraceae, sister-group relationships of Bhesa + Centroplacus , and the exclusion of Medu- sandra from Malpighiales. New taxonomic circumscriptions include the addition of Bhesa to Centroplacaceae, Medusandra to Peridiscaceae (Saxifragales), Calophyllaceae applied to Clusiaceae subfamily Kielmeyeroideae, Peraceae applied to Euphorbi- aceae subfamily Peroideae, and Huaceae included in Oxalidales.
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