Tribal relationships of Beesia, Eranthis and seven other genera of Ranunculaceae: evidence from cytological characters

Abstract

The karyotypes of 16 species and one variety representing nine genera in the Ranunculaceae were analysed in order to obtain information on the placement of the genera Beesia and Eranthis at tribal rank in the family. Those of Beesia , Anemonopsis , Souliea , Cimicifuga , Actaea and Eranthis were found to be very similar to each other, but remarkably different from those of Caltha , Calathodes , Megaleranthis and Trollius with respect to chromosome size and morphology. From cytological data it is clearly evident that Beesia and Eranthis have a much closer affinity to Anemonopsis , Souliea , Cimicifuga and Actaea in the tribe Cimicifugeae than to Caltha , Calathodes , Megaleranthis and Trollius , which generally have been placed together in a single tribe, albeit with different tribal names such as Caltheae, Trollieae and Helleboreae. Therefore, Beesia and Eranthis may find better placement in the tribe Cimicifugeae. The long-presumed, mainly morphology-based close affinity between Eranthis and Helleborus is not supported by both cytological and palynological data. Cytologically, both Actaea and Eranthis appear to be the specialized genera in the Cimicifugeae, through having the most asymmetrical karyotypes in this tribe. Our results strongly support the recent re-definition of the tribe Actaeeae (as Cimicifugeae) to include Beesia and Eranthis , based on maximum parsimony analysis performed separately on molecular data.

Taxonomic notes on Cimicifuga nanchuanensis (Ranunculaceae), a hitherto imperfectly known species from China

“…Its chromosome morphology is also constant within and between populations with a karyotype of 2n = 10m + 4sm + 2t (Fig. E− H), and essentially identical with that of all the other species with available karyotypic data in Cimicifuga (Kurita , Ramsey , Hasegawa , Emura (Hasegawa) , , , Yang et al , Wang et al , Lee and Park , Yang , Yuan and Yang ). In fact, the only two tetraploid species known in the whole genus Cimicifuga (including Actaea and Souliea ) are the Sino‐Himalayan C. frigida Royle (Ren et al ) and the Kashmir Himalayan C. kashmiriana J. Compton & Hedd.…”

Chromosome numbers of 28 taxa in 10 genera of the Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) from the Korean peninsula

“…The chromosome number is congruent with the previous counts from China (Yang 1998;Wang et al 2001;Yang 2002b;Yuan and Yang 2006). The chromosome number of the other Korean species, A. erythrocarpa Fisch., has been reported as diploidy (2n = 16) from Chinese populations (Wang et al 2001).…”

Phylogenetic placements of Calathodes and Megaleranthis (Ranunculaceae): Evidence from molecular and morphological data

“…Wang (1979). However, Yang (1995) pointed out that the chromosomes of the genus belonged to R-type, and Yang (1995Yang ( , 2002 and Yuan & Yang (2006) considered that Calathodes belonged to the tribe Trollieae sensu W.T. Wang (1979), which also included Caltha, Trollius and Megaleranthis.…”