Lasiodiscus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Lasiodiscus mildbraedii, pressed leaves showing opposite arrangement
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
See text |
Lasiodiscus is a small plant genus in the family Rhamnaceae, endemic to Africa and its adjacent islands. The small trees have opposite, often assymetric leaves. They regularly occur in the understorey of tropical forests, or alternatively in swamp forest. One species is limited to mountain forest understorey. Lasiodiscus is morphologically similar to Colubrina but preliminary molecular analysis failed to group them as nearest relatives.
There are 9 species:
- Lasiodiscus chevalieri Hutch.
- Lasiodiscus fasciculiflorus Engl.
- Lasiodiscus holtzii Engl.
- Lasiodiscus mannii Hook. (central Africa)
- Lasiodiscus marmoratus C.H. Wright
- Lasiodiscus mildbraedii Engl. (African tropics, locally along African east coast)
- Lasiodiscus pervillei Baill. (Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion and Comores)
- L. p. pervillei (widespread in Madagascar)
- L. p. ferrugineus (Verdc.) (local in east Africa, Vulnerable)
- Lasiodiscus rozeirae A.W. Exell (São Tomé, Gulf of Guinea, Vulnerable)
- Lasiodiscus usambarensis Engl. (Usambara mountains, locally to Zimbabwe)
[edit] Reference
- A phylogenetic analysis of Rhamnaceae using RBCL and TRNL-F plastid DNA sequences, J.E. Richardson et al, American Journal of Botany, 87(9), 2000.
[edit] External references
Note: The Lasiodiscidae belongs to the Foraminifera and Reichel (1945) described the genus Lasiodiscus.
