“…The identification of the Barnadesiinae as the ancestral lineage has important implications concerning the place of origin of the Asteraceae and its relationships to other families in the Asteridae. The center of diversity for the eight genera of Barnadesiinae is the northern Andes (Cabrera, 1977), which supports previous suggestions that the family originated in montane South America (Bentham, 1873;Small, 1919;Raven and Axelrod, 1974;Turner, 1977). Our results also agree with suggestions (Carlquist, 1966;Jeffrey, 1977) that bilabiate flowers and the woody habit, which are common features in the Barnadesiinae, are primitive in the Asteraceae.…”