Abstract:
The Cyrtandra villosissima group is an artificial group of morphologically similar species
consisting of C. argentii, C. ferruginea, C. hirtigera, and C. villosissima. These species
independently evolve but share characteristics such as an erect, suffrutescent habit and slightly
falcate, densely hirsute, large leaves. Due to their similarities, herbarium specimens of this
group with missing reproductive parts are often misidentified. Leaves are a good source of
taxonomic information for species identification because they are present all year, have
generally conserved and stable characteristics, and are not as fragile during handling and
transportation as flowers. In the present study, we obtained leaf geometric morphometric data
from herbarium specimens of the Cytandra villosissima group to determine if morphologically
distinct groups exist using Principal Component Analysis and Linear Discriminant Analysis.
Results showed no morphologically distinct groups within the C. villosissima group based on
leaf shape. These results may be due to phenotypic plasticity, as similar environments and
microenvironments may cause plants to develop similar morphological characteristics, such as
leaf shape, despite coming from different genetic lineages and geographic locations. Our results
suggest that the differentiation of C. villosissima group members using leaf shape is only
possible in combination with other parts, such as the reproductive parts. Future geometric
morphometric studies may look into using fresh specimens and pressing them into herbarium
sheets themselves, as recently pressed herbarium specimens may have a more accurate
representation of the original leaf outlines than old herbarium sheets that have degraded over
time.
