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Cladistic Relationships Of Aechmea (Bromeliaceae, Bromelioideae) And Allied Genera, A.P.G. De Faria, T. Wendt, Gregory K. Brown

Gregory K Brown

Aechmea (ca. 220 species) is the largest and most diverse genus in Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae), and several dissimilar generic concepts and infrageneric classifications have been proposed, frequently involving other closely related Bromelioideae. A morphology-based phylogenetic analysis using parsimony was conducted with 86 taxa, including 52 Aechmea (7 of the 8 recognized subgenera represented) and 34 exemplars from 9 closely related genera as the ingroup. Two species of Cryptanthus were included as the outgroup. The main objectives were to assess the validity of the major infrageneric classification systems proposed for Aechmea and to elucidate the phylogenetic position of Aechmea and putatively related …