PetersList

Clades of the Cape flora. Compiled by Linder (2003: The radiation of the Cape flora, southern Africa. Biological Reviews 78:597-638) and reproduced here with permission from the author.

Only “larger” clades are included. Species numbers for the Cape Floristic Region for each genus were taken from Goldblatt and Manning (2000a), and total species numbers for each genus largely follow Goldblatt and Manning (2000a), but for genera outside the CFR various sources were used, including Mabberley (1997) and Leistner (2000). The arguments for inclusion in the Cape flora are briefly listed, as well as references on the phylogeny indicating the monophyly of the clade, and also indicating that the clade is not sister to another Cape floral clade.

Clade	Family	Total spp.	CFR spp.	Evidence for CFR root	References
Ficinia	Cyperaceae	c. 60	56	African endemic, with most species in CFR. A phylogeny is needed to test whether the basal clades are in the CFR.	Muasya, et al. (1998).
Tetratria	Cyperaceae	c.40	38	Western Cape and Australia	Muasya, et al. (1998).
Irideae p.p., including Bobartia, Dietes, Ferraria, Moraea s.l.	Iridaceae¹	226	136	All genera and most species in the CFR.	Goldblatt, (1991); Reeves et al. (2001).
Ixioideae & Nivenioideae, excluding Patersonia and Geosiris	Iridaceae¹	c.900	516	Four of 26 genera not found in CFR, these are tropical Africa. Many genera extend to tropical Africa and Madagascar.	Goldblatt, (1991); Reeves, et al. (2001).
Disineae (Disa, Schizochilus)	Orchidaceae²	168	92	Cladistic analyses suggest basal elements are CFR	Linder (1994); Douzery, et al. (1999).
Coryciinae (Pterygodium, Corycium, etc.)	Orchidaceae²	39	30	All basal lineages and most species in CFR	Kurzweil, et al. (1991).
Ehrharta	Poaceae	36	20	With a few exceptions in winter-rainfall area, some species in Australasia	Gibbs Russell (1987); Verboom (2000).
Pentaschistis – Pentameris - Prionanthium	Poaceae	81	55	Greatest diversity in Cape, but a phylogeny is needed to estabish which clades are basal.	Linder & Ellis (1990a); Barker, et al. (2000).
African Restionaceae	Restionaceae	350	340	A monophyletic clade, with very few, largely unrelated, species outside CFR.	Linder, et al. (2000); Linder (2001a).
Centella	Araliaceae	50	49	Most species in the CFR, but the affinities of the genus are still unclear.
Relhaniinae (Disparago, Elytropappus, Metalasia, Relhania, Stoebe, and diverse small genera)	Asteraceae³	170	131	This clade is still difficult to define, since no generic level analysis of the tribe exists that is both complete and robust. I assume the monophyly of the Cape Gnaphalieae	Bremer (1976; 1994); Karis (1989).
Arctoteae (Arctotis, Berkheya, Cullumia)	Asteraceae³	199	109	Found more on the arid fringes, and might not be a typical Cape flora element	Bremer (1994).
Ursiniinae (Ursinia, Athanasia)	Asteraceae³	114	80	Most genera in CFR	Bremer (1994).
Amellus grp (Felicia, Chrysocoma)	Asteraceae - Astereae	149	90	7/10 genera in the CFR, with most species too.	Bremer (1994).
Lobostemon	Boraginaceae	28	28	All species in the CFR, sister-genus is Echium in Eurasia	Hilger & Böhle (2000).
Heliophila, Brachycarpaea,Cycloptychis, Silicularia, Thlaspeocarpa, Schlechteria	Brassicaceae	77	60	Mostly along the arid northern margins. The affinities of the clade are unclear.	K. Mummenhoff personal communication.
Bruniaceae	Bruniaceae	67	65	Only two species in the Eastern Cape and Natal. Related to Ericales s.l., possibly sister to Sphenostemon.	Bremer, et al. (2001).
Prismatocarpeae, Siphocodoneae, Merciereae	Campanulaceae	63	54	These Cape genera may not form a clade – no generic level phylogeny available.	Takhtajan (1997).
Erica s.l.	Ericaceae	860	658	The vast majority of species are in the CFR. However, it is not clear whether (a) the Cape species are monophyletic, or (b) basal in the genus.	Oliver (1991; 2000).
Crotalarieae p.p. (Aspalathus, Rafnia)	Fabaceae⁴	297	291	Although many genera of the rest of the tribe have species in the CFR, only Wiborgia has most of its species there, the rest are more tropical.	Van Wyk (1995).
Podalyrieae, Liparieae	Fabaceae⁴	128	120	The two tribes form a clade, the sisters of which are outside the CFR	Van Wyk (1995).
Psoraleeae p.p. (Psoralea, Otholobium)	Fabaceae⁴	104	94	There is no evidence that these two genera form a clade: the rest of the tribe is in the Northern Hemisphere or tropical.
Pelargonium	Geraniaceae	250	148	80% of the species are in the winter-rainfall area, and the basal elements are in the CFR.	van der Walt & Vorster (1983); Bakker, et al. (1999a; 1999b).
Geissoloma	Geisso-lomataceae	1	1	Endemic family, closests to the Northern Hemispherical Stachyuraceae, Stachyleaceae and Crossosomataceae	Nandi, et al. (1998).
Grubbia	Grubbiaceae	3	3	Endemic family, probably the sister of Curtisia, and these two the sister group of Cornaceae. .	Savolainen, et al. (2000); Xiang, et al. (2002).
Lampranthus	Mesem-bryanthemacea⁵	155	125	Generic delimitations dubious, possible the whole Lampranthus group should be included, but here, too the genera are dubious	Hartmann (1991).
Peneaeceae	Penaeaceae	23	23	The family is endemic to the Cape, the sister is Oliniaceae, which is widespread in E and S Africa	Conti, et al. (1997).
Muraltia, Nylandia	Polygalaceae	117	108	This clade is embedded within Polygala, thus maybe some of the Cape Polygala species belong here, too. The clade is almost entirely within the CFR.	Persson (2001).
Proteae	Proteaceae	340	264	Greatest diversity in Cape, all genera in the Cape. However, there is considerable doubt about the monophyly of the African genera of Proteae.	Johnson & Briggs (1975); Hoot & Douglas (1998).
Phyliceae (Nesiota, Phylica, Noltia)	Rhamnaceae	152	134	Two of the three genera, including the basal genus, and almost all species in the CFR.	Richardson, et al. (2000); Richardson, et al. (2001a).
Cliffortia	Rosaceae	120	114	Very few species outside CFR, the sister-taxa either in New Zealand or Europe.	Helfgott, et al. (2000).
Diosmeae (Agathosma, Diosma, etc.)	Rutaceae	276	268	The subtribe is almost restricted to the CFR. However, the only phylogeny of the clade could not retrieve its monophyly, and no detailed phylogenetic studies have been carried out.
Selago	Scrophulariaceae⁶	190	101	The phylogenetic situation in Scrophulariaceae is unclear.
Stilbaceae	Stilbaceae (including Retziaceae)	14	14	This includes both Stilbaceae and Retziaceae, which are sister to the tropical African Nuxia	Oxelman, et al. (1999).
Lachnaea	Thymelaeaceae	40	40	The relationship between this genus and related genera is not known, so this might need to be modified.
Totals		5885	4455

1. Mapping the areas onto the phylogeny of Iridaceae proposed by Reeves, et al. (2001) results in an ambiguous estimation of the area of origin of the family. It remains possible that the family originated in southern Africa, and dispersed outwards.

2. In the earlier literature it was suggested that the tribe Diseae (inclusive of Disinae, Coryciinae, Satyriinae, Brownleeainae and Huttoniaeinae) might be centered in the Cape flora. However, recent cladistic analyses of DNA sequence variation (Douzery, et al., 1999) indicated the paraphyly of both Diseae and Coryciinae, while Disinae and Coryciinae s.s. are clearly centered in the CFR, Satyriinae and Disperiidae have more species and possibly more variation in tropical Africa.

3. The Asteraceae are particularly difficult to separate into Cape and non-Cape clades. This is partly a result of the dominance of the family in the more arid zones which flank the CFR, and partly the result of the large number of genera, which makes an overview difficult. In addition, many of the subtribes and tribes have a rather wide distribution. Here, the phylogenetically based classification of Bremer (1994) is followed consistently, even where more recent phylogenetic hypotheses are available.

4. The problems with defining “Cape floral clades” in Fabaceae are rather similar to those in Asteraceae, with the added problem that there is no recent family overview. In several tribes, like Crotalarieae, most of the genera have a few species in the CFR, but most outside. Other genera, like Indigofera, are similar to Senecio in having a large number of species in the CFR, but are also very well represented outside the Region.

5. Mesembryanthema present very special problems. There are far too many species recognised, and every revision results in a drastic reduction in the number of species. The generic delimitations are dubious, many species belong to the large genera Rushia and Lampranthus, these are most likely highly polyphyletic. The phylogenetic relationships among the genera are unknown. It seems therefore almost impossible to delimit Cape clades, and to get a reasonable estimate of the number of species involved.

6. Scrophulariaceae have largely the same problems as Asteraceae: many genera, many with a large contingent of species in the CFR, but still inadequately known to delimit confident Cape clades.