Abstract
Diminutive plants of the duckweed family have been difficult to study systematically because of reduction and character state losses that have accompanied their adaptation to aquatic habitats. Phylogenetic analysis of flavonoid and anatomical-morphological data indicate that evolution in the family has proceeded in a linear manner from complex ancestors to reduced species of subfam.Wolffioideae. The high probability of convergence for character reduction and loss, however, renders this conclusion tentative. Cladograms from combined data require only a slight increase in length to resolve all four genera as monophyletic. These studies indicate the need for more suitable data to evaluate hypotheses of duckweed relationships.
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Les, D.H., Landolt, E. & Crawford, D.J. Systematics of theLemnaceae (duckweeds): Inferences from micromolecular and morphological data. Pl Syst Evol 204, 161–177 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00989203
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00989203