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Evolution And Flower Shape From The Hawaiian Lobelioids To The Campanulaceae, Jingjing Tong

Theses and Dissertations

Campanulaceae, with roughly 2,400 species, is divided into five subfamilies, in part, by differences in their floral orientation and symmetry, with broad transitions between radial and bilateral floral symmetry. The Hawaiian lobelioids in the Campanulaceae is the largest endemic clade of Hawaiian angiosperms, and they have long been viewed as one of the most spectacular examples of an adaptive radiation in plants. In the first part of our study, we focus on Clermontia, which is one of the largest genera of Hawaiian lobelioids, employing variable low-copy nuclear gene sequences to determine their phylogenetic relationships. We use intron regions from four …