Phylogenetic relationship of Smilacaceae of java based on morphological characters

Phylogenetic study to determine the phylogenetic relationship of Smilacaeae of Java based on morphological data has been conducted. Smilacaceae has a well-deserved reputation for being taxonomically difficult since this family has wide phenotypic variation and lack of fertile collections. Smilacaceae species from Java consist of species which vary in both vegetative and reproductive characters. A total of ten species of Smilacaceae in Java with an addition of 78 taxa representing all genera and sections of the family from all over the world were used for phylogenetic analysis. Two species of Ripogonum (Ripogonum album and R. discolor) which were known as the sister of Smilacaceae were incorporated as an outgroup. A matrix consisted of 38 binary and ten multistate morphological characters were constructed. Strict consensus tree revealed from Maximum Parsimony (MP) as well as Neighbor-Joining (NJ) showed that Smilacaceae is a monophyletic family. Smilacaceae species of Java which belong to the section Macra...