SEDGE GENERA OF THE WORLD - RELATIONSHIPS AND A NEW CLASSIFICATION OFTHE CYPERACEAE

Descriptions of the 122 genera of Cyperaceae were automatically conver ted from a DELTA database to PAUP format and into distance matrices, f or cladistic and phenetic analyses. Comments on the taxa included are provided, and an annotated and illustrated character list is presented . Subsets of characters and taxa were analysed and the results compare d with previous classifications of the family, including one recently derived from manual cladistic analyses. The cladistic analyses were mo re successful in providing reasonable hypothetical phylogenies than in providing classifications permitting useful generalisation. The phene tically derived trees are in general similar to the cladograms, but th ey are more highly structured and correspond more closely to a previou sly published manually derived cladogram. A suprageneric classificatio n of the Cyperaceae is proposed, in which the genera are explicitly as signed to twelve tribes and two subfamilies. The interactive program I NTKEY was used for preparing group descriptions and diagnoses, thus gr eatly facilitating comparisons among alternative classificatory soluti ons. Weaknesses of literature generalisations, particularly at higher taxonomic levels, highlight the need for more comparative data. A curr ent version of the 'Sedge Genera of the World' dataset is available on INTERNET at URL ttp://www.cis.csiro.au/cis/journals/asb/index.html un der accessory publications.