Field and Morphometric Studies of Phyllobotryon Müell.Arg. (Salicaceae) in the Korup Forest Area of Cameroon

[摘要] MorphometricanalysisofPhyllobotryonMüell.Arg.intheKorupForestAreaofCameroonrecognizesthreedistinctmorphospecies(1–3),whichshowsignificantvariationinseveralleafandfruitcharacters.InordertoclarifythetaxonomyofPhyllobotryon,weconductedunivariateandmultivariateanalysesonsixteenquantitativeandfourqualitativecharactersscoredfrom111freshsamples.AnalysisofVariancerevealedninesignificantquantitativecharactersfromwhichthefirstthreePrincipalComponentsaccountedfor74.6%ofthetotalvariation.ResultsfromDiscriminantAnalysisstronglysupporttheexistenceoftwogroups(96.2%and100%)representingMorphospecies2and3,butmorphospecies2isonlyweaklysupported(88.9%)asdistinctfrommorphospecies1.Characterssuchaspetiolelength,fruitsurfaceornamentation,styleamp;calyxpersistence,flowerandfruitorientationandleafshapeareoftaxonomicimportance.Acomparisonofourthreemorphospeciestoliteraturedescriptionsandavailableherbariumspecimensmatchedupourmorphospecies1tothepublishedPhyllobotryonspathulatumMüell.Arg.,whilethetwoothermorphospeciesdidnotcorrespondtovalidlypublishedtaxa.Basedonourresults,theanalyzedmorphologicalvariationsuggeststhreemorphologicalentitiesandoneknownspeciesinthegenus,andthereforeaformaltaxonomicstatusofthespeciesrankshouldbeconsideredforallthreemorphospecies.Anidentificationkeytotaxaofthegenusisprovided.

[学科分类] 植物学

[关键词] Korup Forest Area;Morphometric Analysis;Morphology;Africa;Tropical Forest;PCA;région forestière de Korup;analyse morphométrique;morphologie;Afrique;forêt tropicale;PCA