Revision of Passiflora Subgenus Decaloba ... - Passion Flowers

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morphological analysis. Passiflora pallida and P. suberosa ssp. litoralis are
present in a clade with P. tenuiloba, underscoring the close relationship between
P. pallida and P. suberosa ssp. suberosa, with P. tenuiloba forming a clade with
P. pallida based upon the width of the floral nectary. Passiflora tridactylites is
placed in a clade with P. lancifolia and P. macfadyenii, which is likely a
consequence of the increased flower size and other adaptations to non-
hymenopteran pollinators in these three species. The molecular analysis
indicates that P. lancifolia is sister to P. suberosa ssp. suberosa, though with only
moderate support (73%), and according to my morphological analysis, P.
macfadyenii is sister to P. lancifolia. In addition, P. tridactylites is very similar in
many morphological characters to P. suberosa ssp. litoralis, both of which occur
on islands of the Galapagos, underscoring their probable close relationship.
Passiflora tridactylites, P. lancifolia, and P. macfadyenii are similar in many
aspects to P. suberosa, and all three likely evolved from it. However, it is
doubtful that they are each other’s closest relatives.
In the molecular cladistic analysis, some of the ambiguities apparent in the
results from the phenetic analyses and morphology-based cladistic analyses
were resolved or at least clarified. In all three trees resulting from an analysis of
the ITS sequence data of supersection Cieca, P. pallida appeared to be
monophyletic with bootstrap support of 95%, but P. suberosa ssp. suberosa and
P. suberosa ssp. litoralis are not indicated as monophyletic. Their non-
monophyly is likely due, at least in part, to some amount of gene exchange
between these entities. While the amplification of the ITS region yielded a single