Revised Species Delimitation in the Giant Water Lily Genus Victoria (Nymphaeaceae) Confirms a New Species and Has Implications for Its Conservation

ABSTRACT: Reliably documenting plant diversity is necessary to protect and sustainably benefit from it. At the heart of this documentation lie species concepts and the practical methods used to delimit taxa. Here, we apply a total-evidence, iterative methodology to delimit and document species in the South American genus Victoria (Nymphaeaceae). The systematics of Victoria has thus far been poorly characterized due to difficulty in attributing species identities to biological collections. This research gap stems from an absence of type material and biological collections, also the confused diagnosis of V. cruziana. With the goal of improving systematic knowledge of the genus, we compiled information from historical records, horticulture and geography and assembled a morphological dataset using citiz

SUBMITTER: Smith L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9289450 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature