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Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.): Taxonomy and Relationships

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Book cover The Eggplant Genome

Part of the book series: Compendium of Plant Genomes ((CPG))

Abstract

Solanum melongena L. (brinjal eggplant) is a member of a small monophyletic group (Eggplant clade) of mainly andromonoecious species in the large and diverse Leptostemonum clade of Solanum (previously referred to as subgenus Leptostemonum Bitter). The Leptostemonum clade (also known as the spiny solanums) is the most diverse monophyletic group in the species-rich genus Solanum and contains more than 500 species occurring on all continents except Antarctica. In this chapter, we summarise the current state of knowledge of the taxonomy and phylogeny of Solanum, the Leptostemonum clade and that of the monophyletic group of Old World taxa to which S. melongena belongs. We provide a species list with distributions of the currently recognised members of the Eggplant clade and discuss character evolution and biogeography in the group in the context of phylogeny.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mark Chapman for inviting us to write this chapter; our understanding of eggplant taxonomy and relationships has been based on the foundational work done by the late Richard N. Lester (Birmingham) whose generosity with materials and ideas was inspirational and who is much missed; funding for work on spiny solanums came from many sources—the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Planetary Biodiversity Initiative (PBI) grant “PBI Solanum—a worldwide perspective” (DEB-0316614) to SK; the Natural History Museum’s Natural Resources and Hazards Initiative; travel for herbarium visits was financed by the SYNTHESYS Project (http://www.synthesys.info/) financed by European Community Research Infrastructure Actions under the FP6 and FP7 “Structuring the European Research Area” Programme, and the Special Funds of the Natural History Museum.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK

    Sandra Knapp

  2. Laboratoire Écologie, Systématique et Évolution, UMR 8079, Université Paris-Sud/CNRS/AgroParisTech, Orsay, France

    Xavier Aubriot

  3. Instituto de Conservación y Mejora de la Agrodiversidad Valenciana, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera 14, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Jaime Prohens

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  1. Sandra Knapp
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Correspondence to Sandra Knapp .

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  1. Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Mark A. Chapman

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Knapp, S., Aubriot, X., Prohens, J. (2019). Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.): Taxonomy and Relationships. In: Chapman, M. (eds) The Eggplant Genome. Compendium of Plant Genomes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99208-2_2

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