Banksia Ser. Cyrtostylis - According To Thiele and Ladiges

According To Thiele and Ladiges

In 1996, Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges undertook a cladistic analysis of morphological characters of Banksia, which yielded a phylogeny somewhat at odds with George's taxonomic arrangement. They found B. ser. Cyrtostylis to be "widely polyphyletic". Six of the fourteen taxa in George's B. ser. Cyrtostylis occurred singly in locations throughout the cladogram; these were transferred to other series or left incertae sedis. The remaining eight taxa formed a clade, which further resolved into two subclades:

Thiele and Ladiges preferred to give series rank to the subclades, rather than the entire clade, so they transferred the taxa of the second clade into B. ser. Ochraceae, retaining only the taxa of the first clade in B. ser. Cyrtostylis. No formal definition was given for the new circumscription, although Thiele and Ladiges attached no fewer than seven synapomorphies to the clade, three of which were reversals, the other four parallelisms.

The placement and circumscription of B. ser. Cyrtostylis in Thiele and Ladiges' arrangement of Banksia may be summarised as follows:

Banksia

B. subg. Isostylis (3 species)

B. elegans (incertae sedis)

B. subg. Banksia

B. ser. Tetragonae (4 species)

B. ser. Lindleyanae (1 species)

B. ser. Banksia (2 subseries, 12 species)

B. baueri (incertae sedis)

B. lullfitzii (incertae sedis)

B. attenuata (incertae sedis)

B. ashbyi (incertae sedis)

B. coccinea (incertae sedis)

B. ser. Prostratae (8 species)

B. ser. Cyrtostylis

B. pilostylis

B. media

B. epica

B. praemorsa

B. ser. Ochraceae (3 species, 2 subspecies)

B. ser. Grandes (2 species)

B. ser. Salicinae (2 series, 11 species, 4 subspecies)

B. ser. Spicigerae (3 series, 7 species, 6 varieties)

B. ser. Quercinae (2 species)

B. ser. Dryandroideae (1 species)

B. ser. Abietinae (4 subseries, 15 species, 8 varieties)