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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

phylogeny, morphology, seed coat, fibrillar mucilage, polemoniaceae, Plox

College

Life Sciences

Department

Plant and Wildlife Sciences

Abstract

The Phlox family (Polemoniaceae) has been the focus of many studies regarding plant speciation and diversification. Comprising just 379 species in 26 genera, considerable interest exists in understanding the phylogenetic relationships in the Phlox family to further increase its value as a model system for exploring diversification patterns (Johnson, 1996; Porter, 1996; Grant, 1998; Porter and Johnson, 2000; Prather, 2000). Although DNA-based phylogenetic hypotheses have been proposed, few morphological features have been described in sufficient detail to allow them to be incorporated into explicit phylogenetic analyses. Although a large number of character surveys in this family have been published, thorough analysis of seed morphology has been overlooked despite the use of this character in taxonomic keys and the significant differences observed among species in seed germination requirements. Some of the earliest classifications in this family distinguished species by whether or not their seeds appear mucilaginous upon wetting. In 1907, Brand elaborated on this characteristic and proposed four different categories of seeds: (from Grant, 1959)

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