Background and context
Macaranga is a large genus of c. 250 species in Africa and Asia, its sister genus Mallotus occurs in the same area, but has less species. Anatomical characters of Mallotus were extremely helpful to separate species and, more important, to characterize clades in the phylogeny of Mallotus. A first scan of the Macaranga characters by Fišer Pečnikar showed that Macaranga is even more diverse than Mallotus.
Literature
Fišer Pečnikar et al. 2012. Botanical Jounral of the Linnean Society 169: 645—676; Kulju et al. 2007. Amer. J. Bot. 94: 1726—1743.
Objectives and goals
Description of all leaf anatomical characters of Macaranga.
Methods
Anatomical slides (sampling dried leaves, rehydrating them, making sections, cuticle macerations and cleared leaf fragments, bleeching, colouring, mounting, labelling) will be made, studied and described. Photos (SEM, microscope) will be made. The resulting characters per species will plotted on the existing phylogenies to see if they are typical for clades in the cladogram.
Results
To be published in a high impact journal. Thus report in form of journal manuscript.