Sapotaceae is a pantropical family divided in the three subfamilies Chrysophylloideae,
Sapotoideae and Sarcospermatoideae, together comprising approximately 1,250 species and 58 genera. Traditional generic limits are notoriously problematic within family, due to extensive homoplasy, which have been resulting in different proposals of classification. There is strong phylogenetic support for the subfamily Chrysophylloideae, being considered the largest grouping in Sapotaceae and the best represented in Neotropics. However, their internal generic limits are still not entirely clear, mainly for Pouteria and Chrysophyllum, which are paraphyletic or polyphyletic genera. Considering that new approaches are necessary in the search for diagnostic characters to support the circumscription of genera, this study focus on taxonomic and systematic issues in the Chrysophylloideae, especially to genera from Amazon. The purpose of this study is to increase the morphological knowledge about fruits, seeds and, especially seedlings of species Neotropical Chrysophylloideae (Sapotaceae), with characters evaluation useful under a phylogenetic perspective. Thus, we provide comprehensive morphological descriptions, taxonomic notes, identification keys and illustrations of fruits, seeds and seedlings for 36 species in eight genera of Chrysophylloideae: Chromolucuma, Chrysophyllum, Ecclinusa, Elaeoluma, Micropholis, Pouteria, Pradosia and Sarcaulus. We
collected ripe fruits mainly in the Amazonas, Bahia and Roraima states, Brazil and soon after we described 220 quantitative and qualitative morphological characters (30 of fruits, 33 of seeds and 157 of seedlings), based on previous studies for Sapotaceae. We traced 78 characters in the molecular phylogeny recently proposed for Neotropical Chrysophylloideae, of which eight have been identified as useful for diagnostic purposes: a) presence/absence of “marzipan” odor, b) presence/absence of pedicel on fruit, c) type of cotyledons, d) presence/absence of endosperm, e) cotyledon consistency, f) hypocotyl elongation, g) type of seedling (innovative character), and h) presence/absence of stipule on seedlings. Our results supported recent proposals of generic delimitation to subfamily, because such as Ecclinusa, Micropholis, Prieurella, Ragala and the easily distinguished Chromolucuma, Pradosia and Sarcaulus genera had morphological support for the clades.
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