Tambourissa

About: Tambourissa is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 12 publications have been published within this topic receiving 304 citations.

Biogeography of the Monimiaceae (Laurales): a role for East Gondwana and long‐distance dispersal, but not West Gondwana

Abstract: Aim The biogeography of the tropical plant family Monimiaceae has long been thought to reflect the break-up of West and East Gondwana, followed by limited transoceanic dispersal. Location Southern Hemisphere, with fossils in East and West Gondwana. Methods We use phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences from 67 of the c. 200 species, representing 26 of the 28 genera of Monimiaceae, and a Bayesian relaxed clock model with fossil prior constraints to estimate species relationships and divergence times. Likelihood optimization is used to infer switches between biogeographical regions on the highest likelihood tree. Results Peumus from Chile, Monimia from the Mascarenes and Palmeria from eastern Australia/New Guinea form a clade that is sister to all other Monimiaceae. The next-deepest split is between the Sri Lankan Hortonia and the remaining genera. The African Monimiaceae, Xymalos monospora, then forms the sister clade to a polytomy of five clades: (I) Mollinedia and allies from South America; (II) Tambourissa and allies from Madagascar and the Mascarenes; (III) Hedycarya, Kibariopsis and Leviera from New Zealand, New Caledonia and Australia; (IV) Wilkiea, Kibara, Kairoa; and (V) Steganthera and allies, all from tropical Australasia. Main conclusions Tree topology, fossils, inferred divergence times and ances-tral area reconstruction fit with the break-up of East Gondwana having left a still discernible signature consisting of sister clades in Chile and Australia. There is no support for previous hypotheses that the break-up of West Gondwana (Africa/South America) explains disjunctions in the Monimiaceae. The South American Mollinedia clade is only 28–16 Myr old, and appears to have arrived via trans-Pacific dispersal from Australasia. The clade apparently spread in southern South America prior to the Andean orogeny, fitting with its first-diverging lineage (Hennecartia) having a southern-temperate range. The crown ages of the other major clades (II–V) range from 20 to 29 Ma, implying over-water dispersal between Australia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and the Mascarenes. The endemic genus Monimia on the Mascarenes provides an interesting example of an island lineage being much older than the islands on which it presently occurs.

Ontogeny, function and evolution of extreme floral construction in Monimiaceae

Abstract: In at least 4 genera of theMonimiaceae (Tambourissa, Wilkiea, Kibara, Hennecartia) extremely specialized flowers with a hyperstigma occur, i.e. a secretory zone in the narrow entrance of the floral cup. The mucilaginous secretion of the hyperstigma and of the carpels produces a transmitting medium for pollen tubes continuous from the mouth of the floral cup to the ovules. As to their floral morphology, the two extreme types,Hortonia andTambourissa, are connected gradually by various other genera. Possible evolutionary trends and systematic problems are outlined.

Monimiaceae sensu lato, an element of Gondwanan polar forests: Evidence from the late Cretaceous-early tertiary wood flora of Antarctica

Abstract: Palaeofloristic studies of the Antarctic Peninsula region are important in furthering our understanding of (i) the radiation and rise to ecological dominance of the angiosperms in the Southern Hemisphere during the Late Cretaceous and (ii) the present day disjunct austral vegetation. Investigations of Upper Cretaceous and Early Tertiary sediments of this region yield a rich assemblage of well-preserved fossil dicotyledonous angiosperm wood which provides evidence for the existence, since the Late Cretaceous, of temperate forests similar in composition to those found in present-day southern South America, New Zealand and Australia. This paper describes two previously unrecognised morphotypes, which can be assigned to the Monimiaceae sensu lato, and represents the first record of this family in the wood flora of Antarctica. Specimens belonging to the first fossil morphotype have been assigned to Hedycaryoxylon SUss (subfamily Monimioideae) because they exhibit anatomical features characteristic of Hedycaryoxylon and extant Hedycarya J.R.Forst. & G.Forst. and Tambourissa Sonn. Characters include diffuse porosity, vessels which are mainly solitary with scalariform perforation plates, opposite to scalariform intervascular pitting, paratracheal parenchyma, septate fibres and tall (>3 mm), wide multiseriate rays with a length: breadth ratio of approximately 1: 4. Specimens belonging to the second morphotype have been assigned to Atherospermoxylon KrAusel, erected for fossil woods of the Monimiaceae in the tribe Atherospermeae (now Atherospermataceae) in that they exhibit anatomical features similar to Atherospermoxylon and extant Daphnandra Benth., Doryphora Endl. and Laurelia novae-zelandiae A.Cunn. These characters include diffuse to semi-ring porosity, scalariform perforation plates with up to 25 bars, septate fibres, relatively short (<1 mm) rays with a length: breadth ratio of between 1: 4 and 1: 11.

Diversity and evolutionary trends in the floral structure ofTambourissa (Monimiaceae)

Abstract: Tambourissa exhibits an unusual spectrum of floral diversity, tightly linked, however, by a common ground plan. Divergent evolutionary trends have led to small, closed flowers and to secondarily open flowers, including the largest of theMonimiaceae. The myophilous and cantharophilous flowers attract pollinators by scent, colour, stigmatic nectar and pollen. Some species have attained monoecy with partial or complete self-incompatibility, others even dioecy. Extraordinary evolutionary trends include the differentiation of a hyperstigma, the carpel group formation within a gynoecium, the increasing disorder in carpel orientation with increase of carpel number, and the formation of a pseudoperianth by the sterile lobes of the floral cup.

The Monimiaceae and a New Laurelia

Abstract: The family Monimiaceae does not reach the North Temperate zone, consequently it is unfamiliar to students of fossil floras who have largely lived in that zone. It is a family cf great interest to students of plant distribution. Small in size, it contains between 25 and 30 genera and between I75 and 200 species. Systematists have usually recognized a relationship with the Lauraceae and now both families are included in the order Laurales. With the exception of Laurelia, no genus is common to both the Old and the New Worlds. Three genera are confined to New Caledollia and only Tambourissa of the Old World genera is found in more than one continental area. Nearly half of the known genera are monotypic in the existing flora. But two genera have more than a few species) and both of these, Mollixedia and Siparu>sa, with more than I00 species between them, are confined to America. The pertinent facts of the modern distribution are summarized on the accompanying map (flg. I), to which the reader is referred in lieu of a lengthy discussion. Only the following six genera have been recognized in the fossil state: Hedycaria, Peumus, Mollinedia, Moxirnia, Laurelia, and Siparuna, and several of these are of somewhat uncertain status. In addition SAPORTA described three species from the basal Eocene of France for which he proposed the extinct genus MonimioSsis. Four species of Hedycaria have been recorded from the Oligocene and Miocene of Europe and a flfth from the Tertiary of Australia. The genus Mollinedia has been recorded from the European Miocene and from the Tertiary of Seymour Island. Monimia has been recorded from the Oligocene of southern Europe and from Australia. Siparuxa has been recognized in a warm climate Eocene flora from Oregon and it seems likely that it may be represented in the Eocene floras of southeastern North America. Sis fossil species have been referred to Laurelia, and these are