Erythrophleeae Legume Phylogeny Working Group, tribus nov.
publication ID |
https://dx.doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.240.101716 |
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https://treatment.plazi.org/id/3B6ECADE-980C-ED87-0F07-89885BC591A9 |
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scientific name |
Erythrophleeae Legume Phylogeny Working Group, tribus nov. |
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Tribe Erythrophleeae Legume Phylogeny Working Group, tribus nov. LSID
Figs 98 View Figure 98 , 99 View Figure 99 , 100 View Figure 100 , 101 View Figure 101 , 102 View Figure 102
Diagnosis.
Unarmed trees or treelets with macrophyllidious bipinnate leaves, alternate leaflets, flowers shortly pedicellate, densely packed in elongate spicate racemes, small, regular, with a short cupular hypanthium, sepals and petals ascending, almost erect. Similar to the genera Adenanthera L., Amblygonocarpus Harms and Tetrapleura Benth. ( Adenanthera clade, tribe Mimoseae ) in habit of unarmed trees with ample bipinnate leaves with alternate leaflets and small pedicellate flowers in spicate racemes, but differing by the ascending perianth giving a closed aspect to the flowers (vs. flowers open because sepals and petals are reflexed backwards) and seeds lacking a pleurogram. Also differentiated from Adenanthera by fruits straight or slightly curved with thick woody valves (vs. valves thin coriaceous and twisted after dehiscence) and from Amblygonocarpus and Tetrapleura by the fruits with flat valves [vs. tetragonal with a median rib ( Amblygonocarpus ) or wing ( Tetrapleura ) on each valve].
Type
(designated here). Erythrophleum Afzel. ex R. Br.
Included genera
(2). Erythrophleum Afzel. ex R. Br. (12 species), Pachyelasma Harms (1).
Description.
Unarmed trees or treelets; trunk with rough bark and a reddish sap when cut, brachyblasts absent. Stipules inconspicuous, mostly caducous. Leaves bipinnate, ample, macrophyllidious, with few pinnae and few leaflets per pinna, leaflets alternate, elliptical to oblong, frequently asymmetrical, pinnately veined. Inflorescences spicate racemes clustered in terminal or axillary panicles. Flowers perigynous, shortly pedicellate, 5-merous, bisexual, sepals and petals ascending, almost erect, the perianth almost cylindrical; stamens 10, free, the filaments glabrous or pubescent, anthers dehiscing through longitudinal slits; pollen in tricolporate monads; ovary stipitate, pluriovulate, style conical to cylindrical. Fruit dehiscent or, rarely, indehiscent, valves stiffly coriaceous or resinous, endocarp not septate nor breaking into one-seeded envelopes. Seeds slightly compressed, without pleurogram.
Clade-based definition.
The most inclusive crown clade containing Erythrophleum suaveolens (Guill. & Perr.) Brenan and Pachyelasma tessmannii (Harms) Harms, but not Campsiandra laurifolia Benth., Dimorphandra conjugata (Splitg.) Sandwith or Pentaclethra macrophylla Benth. (Fig. 98 View Figure 98 ).
Distribution.
Tropical Africa (including Madagascar), eastern and south-eastern Asia and Australia.
Notes.
The new tribe Erythrophleeae is here proposed to include Erythrophleum and Pachyelasma , two genera which were previously included in the informal Dimorphandra group of old sense tribe Caesalpinieae (sensu Polhill and Vidal 1981). The two genera have been resolved as part of a grade subtending the mimosoid legumes (tribe Mimoseae ) in previous phylogenetic analyses using few molecular markers (e.g., Bruneau et al. 2001, 2008; Luckow et al. 2003; Bouchenak-Khelladi et al. 2010; Marazzi and Sanderson 2010; Manzanilla and Bruneau 2012), but rarely found to group together ( Herendeen et al. 2003a). Plastome genomic data also resolved Erythrophleum and Pachyelasma as successively diverging lineages subtending the Mimoseae ( Zhang et al. 2020). However, phylogenomic analyses of low copy nuclear genes have resolved the two genera together in a clade sister to the Mimoseae , but with each genus subtended by a long branch and with a short internode supporting the clade ( Koenen et al. 2020a; Ringelberg et al. 2022).
Erythrophleum and Pachyelasma share a combination of morphological traits only rarely found in non-Mimoseae Caesalpinioideae , such as bipinnate leaves and small pedicellate perigynous flowers clustered in dense spicate racemes. Structural extrafloral nectaries that were characterised as parenchymatous and elevated with a small domed structure with a central pore ( Pascal et al. 2000; Marazzi et al. 2019) are found in some species of Erythrophleum . Other than being rather cryptic, the presence of these extrafloral nectaries on the leaf rachis, combined with bipinnate leaves, are another morphological similarity with Mimoseae . The two genera also share a reddish sap and very toxic alkaloids and saponins. Erythrophleum is reported to be nodulating with fixation threads, as is typical of nodulating non-Mimoseae Caesalpinioideae ( Faria et al. 2022; status unknown for Pachyelasma ).
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