SALYWON, ANDREW. Department of Plant Biology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. - A revision of Moisera(Myrtinae: Myrtaceae).
Mosiera is a New World genus of approximately 12 species of
trees and shrubs that occur primarily in tropical dry, deciduous or
partially deciduous forests, mainly in the Caribbean. Two species
occur in eastern and southern Mexico, one of these also occurring in
Guatemala, and only one species occurs in South America (Brazil).
Ecologically, Mosiera appears to be restricted to gypsum,
limestone or serpentine soils. Only one species, M. longipes,
is widely distributed throughout the Caribbean, the other species are
generally narrowly endemic. The center of diversity of the genus is
in eastern Cuba which corresponds to the center of botanical diversity
of the Antilles as a whole. Described by Small in 1933, the
boundaries of Mosiera have never been adequately defined until
recently. Mosiera has a combination of characters which cause
it to be superficially similar to other genera (i.e., Anamomis
or Eugenia of the subtribe Eugeniinae or Myrtus or
Psidium in the subtribe Myrtinae). The genus was first
comprehensively described in 1992 by Landrum, however, to date only
three species have been systematically treated and no objective
phylogeny for the genus or the American Myrtinae has yet been
proposed. Seed coat characters in combination with floral characters
are useful in classifying taxa in the American Myrtinae. This
revision confirms and expands this assertion. Preliminary sequence
data from the ITS region of nrDNA of the American Myrtinae supports a
closer relationship of Mosiera to Psidium than to
Myrtus and Calycolpus. In addition, two different
copies of the ITS region are present in several genera of Myrtinae.
Key words: Caribbean, ITS, Mosiera, Myrtaceae, phylogeny, seed coat