Schaefer Hanno, Nee Michael H
Plant Biodiversity Research, Technische Universität München, 85354 Freising, Germany.
PhytoKeys. 2012 Dec 6(18):45-60. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.18.3914. Print 2012.
The Neotropical genus Melothria (Benincaseae, Cucurbitaceae) is a small group of yellow- or white-flowered climbers with small to medium-sized fruits. In 1899, Alfred Cogniaux described a species from montane rainforest in Haiti as Melothria domingensis, presumably based on the overall similarity in habit, leaf shape, and fruit morphology of his incomplete herbarium material to other Central American Melothria species. Melothria domingensis is still rare in European and American herbaria and the species has never been studied in detail. We here present molecular and morphological analyses, which show that the species is misplaced in Melothria and instead belongs in the distantly related tribe Cucurbiteae in the genus Cayaponia. We illustrate the species, provide the formal transfer and an extended description, and discuss the phylogenetic, biogeographic and ecological implications, including the finding that most likely bee- and not bat-pollination is ancestral in Cayaponia.
新热带区的黄瓜属（葫芦科佛手瓜族）是一小群开黄花或白花的攀缘植物，果实大小从中等至小型不等。1899年，阿尔弗雷德·科尼奥克斯将一种来自海地山地雨林的物种描述为多米尼加黄瓜，推测是基于其不完整标本材料在习性、叶形和果实形态上与其他中美洲黄瓜属物种的总体相似性。多米尼加黄瓜在欧美标本馆中仍然很稀少，并且该物种从未得到过详细研究。我们在此展示了分子和形态学分析，结果表明该物种被错误地归入黄瓜属，而实际上属于关系较远的南瓜族中的卡亚波尼亚属。我们对该物种进行了绘图，给出了正式的重新归类及详细描述，并讨论了系统发育、生物地理和生态方面的影响，包括发现卡亚波尼亚属中最可能的传粉方式是蜜蜂传粉而非蝙蝠传粉这一情况。
