Sedge genera of the world: Relationships and a new classification of the Cyperaceae

Abstract

Descriptions of the 122 genera of Cyperaceae were automatically converted from a DELTA database to PAUP format and into distance matrices, for cladistic and phenetic analyses. Comments on the taxa included are provided, and an annotated and illustrated character list is presented. Subsets of characters and taxa were analysed and the results compared with previous classifications of the family, including one recently derived from manual cladistic analyses. The cladistic analyses were more successful in providing reasonable hypothetical phylogenies than in providing classifications permitting useful generalisation: The phenetically derived trees are in general similar to the cladograms, but they are more highly structured and correspond more closely to a previously published, manually derived cladogram. A suprageneric classification of the Cyperaceae is proposed, in which the genera are explicitly assigned to twelve tribes and two subfamilies. The interactive program INTKEY was used for preparing group descriptions and diagnoses, thus greatly facilitating comparisons among alternative classificatory solutions. Weaknesses of literature generalisations, particularly at higher taxonomic levels, highlight the need for more comparative data.