¿Cuántas especies de Liabum (Asteraceae, Liabeae) hay en el Caribe?

GUTIÉRREZ, D. G.; KATINAS, L.; GROSSI, M.

La Plata

Congreso; XXXIV Jornadas Argentinas de Botánica; 2013

The Caribbean species of Liabum Adans. constitute a difficult group since most characters are variable and morphological gaps among species are not very evident. The taxonomic criteria applied to this complex of species ranged from the consideration of one to near a dozen of species. We conducted a statistical analysis (principal component analysis, PCA) based on morphometric variation in order to test the validity of the Caribbean species. The PCA revealed that the first principal component accounts for 52.27 % of total variation and the two first principal components account for 66.3 %. The plots of the principal components show that the variation of the Caribbean species of Liabum is included in the intraspecific variation of L. umbellatum (L.) Sch.Bip. The analysis yields that the morphological traits variation to distinguish the Caribbean species of Liabum, do not allow to separate taxa. Thus, we consider here a single, highly variable species Liabum umbellatum, and propose the names Liabum crispum Sch.Bip., L. cubense Sch.Bip., L. longipes Urb., and L. wrightii Griseb. as new synonyms of L. umbellatum, which becomes the only species of the genus Liabum distributed in the Caribbean (Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica).