Taxonomy and evolutionary relationships of Passiflora subg. Decaloba supersect. Decaloba sect. Xerogona (Passifloraceae): contributions of palynological, morphological and molecular studies

Passiflora subg. Decaloba supersect. Decaloba sect. Xerogona (Passifloraceae) is a tropical and subtropical group comprising 14 species that occur in tropical biomes throughout Latin America, including the Atlantic Forest. The section Xerogona comprises herbaceous vines characterized by a lack of petiole glands on their leaves, of bracts and of ocelli on their leaf blades, as well as by their capsular fruits. We analyzed the phylogeny on the basis of morphological characters (including pollen characters) and molecular data. The inferred phylogeny was used in order to characterize, circumscribe and delimit the section and the species. We examined the phylogenetic relationships among the species, evaluating the circumscription of the section on the basis of the trnL-trnF intergenic spacer region of chloroplast DNA and the internal transcribed spacer region of nuclear ribosomal DNA. We constructed phylogenetic trees on the basis of the morphological and molecular data. We found that P. subg. Decaloba supersect. Decaloba sect. Xerogona appears to be monophyletic only in the molecular analyses. The phylogenetic analyses performed here also indicated that P. subg. Decaloba is monophyleti