@ARTICLE{TreeBASE2Ref15338, author = {Erika J. Edwards and Reto Nyffeler and Michael J Donoghue}, title = {Basal cactus phylogeny: Pereskia paraphyly and implications for early cactus evolution}, year = {2005}, keywords = {}, doi = {}, url = {}, pmid = {}, journal = {American Journal of Botany}, volume = {92}, number = {}, pages = {1177--1188}, abstract = {The cacti are well-known desert plants, widely recognized by their specialized growth form and essentially leafless condition. Pereskia, a group of 17 species with regular leaf development and function, is generally viewed as representing the ancestral cactus, though its placement within Cactaceae has remained uncertain. Here we present a new hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships at the base of the Cactaceae, inferred from DNA sequence data from five gene regions representing all three plant genomes. Our data support a basal split in Cactaceae between a clade of eight Pereskia species, centered around the Caribbean basin, and all other cacti. Two other Pereskia clades, distributed mostly in the southern half of South America, are part of a major clade comprising Maihuenia plus Cactoideae, and Opuntioideae. This result highlights several events in the early evolution of the cacti. First, during the transition to stem-based photosynthesis, the evolution of stem stomata and delayed bark formation preceded the evolution of the stem cortex into a specialized photosynthetic tissue system. Second, the basal split in cacti separates a northern from an initially southern cactus clade, and the major cactus lineages probably originated in southern or west-central South America.} }

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