A morphological study on the Thamnochortus erectus complex (Restionaceae)

Abstract

There are three closely related species within the Thamnochortus erectus group: T. erectus (Thunb.) Mast., T. insignis Mast. and T. spicigerus (Thunb.) Spreng. These species are separated by characters of the female inflorescence morphology. It is shown that they also differ in characters of the culm anatomy, rhizome morphology and anatomy, flowering time, distribution, as well as further characters of the male and female inflorescences. This variation is related to some aspects of the biology of the species, thus showing that what appeared to be three very closely related species are in fact good biological species. This suggests that the traditional reliance on floral and inflorescence morphology in the Restionaceae may underestimate the differences among the species