Abstract
Multivariate analyses based on morphological and anatomical characters have been performed to investigate the phenetic relationship and to clarify the circumscriptions of the genus Lepisorus (J.Sm.) Ching and its related genera, namely Neocheiropteris Christ, Paragramma T. Moore and Platygyria Ching & S.K. Wu. The dendrogram of cluster analysis separated the plants into three groups at Gower similarity coefficient 0.75. Group 1 and Group 2 consisted of Neocheiropteris palmatopedata (Baker) H. Christ and four species of Platygyria, respectively. Group 3 was Neocheiropteris ensata Ching and two species of Paragramma deeply embedded in the Lepisorus s.s. Canonical discriminant analysis supported the classification inferred from the clustering results. Based on these results, Platygyria and N. palmatopedata should be recognized as distinct genera. On the other hand, N. ensata and the genus Paragramma should be merged to the genus Lepisorus. Keywords: Lepisorus; Paragramma; Platygyria; Cluster analysis; Canonical discriminant analysis. DOI: 10.3329/bjpt.v16i2.3924 Bangladesh J. Plant Taxon. 16(2): 99-113, 2009 (December)
Highlights
A complete list is available upon request from the corresponding author.) The specimens that were included in this study belonged to Lepisorus s.s. and its related three genera, namely Neocheiropteris, Paragramma and Platygyria
Group 3 was the largest group consisting of Lepisorus s.s., N. ensata and the two species of Paragramma
At Gower similarity coefficient 0.71, these fern taxa were divided into two groups, i.e. Group 1 and a group composed of Groups 2 and 3 (Fig. 1)
Summary
Moore) is the fern genus of Polypodiaceae, which comprised approximately 30 species (Verdcourt, 2001) or 70 species (Lin, 2000) naturally occurring in the tropical and subtropical Old World and extending northwards to the Far East of Russia with one species in Hawaii (Verdcourt, 2001). (excluding the Paragramma), was first treated by J. Smith in 1846 (in Zink, 1993) as a section of a highly heterogeneous Drynaria, and Ching (1933) raised the section Lepisorus to generic rank. The generic circumscription of Lepisorus has remained controversial because it sometimes included or excluded its related taxa, namely Paragramma and Platygyria Ching & S.K. Wu. In addition, Platygyria, which is closely related to Lepisorus s.l. sometimes merged with the genus Neocheiropteris Christ
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