Urera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (August 2007) |
| Urera | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Urera caracasana fruits
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
The genus Urera comprises shrubs, trees and vines that in Mesoamerica occur most commonly in riparian and disturbed vegetation. Within the Urticaceae Urera is characterized by fleshy fruits (formed by the inflation of the petals), the presence of paintbrush-like stigmas, glabrous pistillodes and hairs with bulbed bases that in some species are stinging.
Urera has a pantropical distribution (Neotropics, Africa, Australasia and the Pacific Islands) but is absent from Asia. Currently a single species, Urera kaalae Wawra has ‘critical endangered’ status (The World Conservation Union Red List ranking, Hawaii, 2005).The genus Urera was first described by Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré in 1826, for which he proposed the sub-tribe Urereae, that was later raised to the rank of tribe by Weddell (1856). This was subsequently renamed Urticeae by Friis (1989.
Urera was expanded to include the monospecific genus Scepocarpus Wedd (Friis, 1989) and chloroplast DNA sequence data (TRNL-F) suggests that Urera could be sister to Poikilospermum within the Urticaceae (Monro, 2006). This contradicts the findings of Sytsma et al. (2002), which place Poikilosperum in a subclade with Pellionia (sub-tribe Lecantheae).
Urera has attracted no monographic attention since Weddell (1856,1869) and to date no subgeneric classification has been published (although Weddell did divide the species into un-named groups according to inflorescence structure and distribution). Systematic work in Urera has largely resulted from localized floristic treatments in and adjoining Mesoamerica (Standley & Steyermark, 1952; Burger, 1977; Pool, 2001; Steinmann, 2004).
There are currently 113 published species epithets for the genus (The International Plant Names Index, 2005) of which 103 are likely legitimate. Of these epithets, sixteen have since been placed in Laportea, Gyrotaenia, Dendrocnide, Boehmeria and Girardinia by subsequent authors. Of the remaining 87 names, Friis (1989) estimates that there are ca. 35 ‘good’ species and Pool (2001) 35 to 75.
[edit] Species include:
[edit] References
BURGER, W. 1977. Urera, Flora Costaricensis. Fieldiana, Bot. 40: 276--280.
GAUDICHAUD-BEAUPRÉ, C. 1826. Urera, Voy. Uranie, Bot. 496--497.
FRIIS, I. 1989. The Urticaceae: a systematic review. In P. R. Crane and S. Blackmore [eds.], Evolution, systematics, and fossil history of the Hamamelidae, vol. 2, Systematics Association Special Volume 40B, 285–308. Oxford Science Publications, Oxford, UK
MONRO. A.K. 2006. The revision of species-rich genera: a phylogenetic framework for the strategic revision of Pilea (Urticaceae) based on CPDNA, NRDNA and morphology. Amer. J. Bot. 93: 426-441.
POOL, A. 2001. Urera. In W. D. Stevens, C. Ulloa, A. Pool, and O. M. Montiel [eds.], Flora de Nicaragua, tomo 3, 2492–2495, Monographs in Botany 85. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
STEINMANN, V.W. 2005. Four new neoptropical species and a new combination of Urera (Urticaceae). Acta Bot. Mex. 71: 19--43.
STANDLEY, P. C., AND J. A. STEYERMARK. 1952. Urera, Flora of Guatemala. Fieldiana, Bot. 3: 424--428.
SYTSMA, K. J., J. MORAWETZ, J. C. PIRES, M. NEPOKROEFF, E. CONTI, M. ZJHRA, J. C. HALL, AND M. W. CHASE. 2002. Urticalean rosids: circumscription, rosid ancestry, and phylogenetics based on rbcL, trnL-F, and ndhF sequences. Amer. J. Bot. 89: 1531–1546.
WEDDELL, H. A. 1856. Urera. In G. Baudry and J. Baudry [eds.], Monographie de la famille des Urticacées. 143--162. G. and J. Baudry, Paris, France.
