CHLOROPLAST DNA SYSTEMATICS OF LILIOID MONOCOTS: RESOURCES,FEASIBILITY, AND AN EXAMPLE FROM THE ORCHIDACEAE

Although chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) analysis has been widely and successfully applied to systematic and evolutionary problems in a wide variety of dicots, its use in monocots has thus far been limited to the Poaceae. The cpDNAs of grasses are significantly altered in arrangement relative to the genomes of most vascular plants, and thus the available clone banks of grasses are not particularly useful in studying variation in the cpDNA of other monocots. In this report, we present mapping studies demonstrating that cpDNAs of four lilioid monocots (Allium cepa, Alliaceae; Asparagus sprengeri, Asparagaceae; Narcissus × hybridus, Amaryllidaceae; and Oncidium excavatum, Orchidaceae), which, while varying in size over as much as 18 kilobase pairs, conform to the genome arrangement typical of most vascular plants. A nearly complete (99.2%) clone bank was constructed from restriction fragments of the chloroplast genome of Oncidium excavatum; this bank should be useful in cpDNA analysis among the monocots and is available upon request. As an example of the utility of filter hybridization using this clone bank to detect systematically useful variation, we present a Wagner parsimony analysis of restriction site data from the controversial genus Trichocentrum and several sections of Oncidium, popularly known as the “mule ear” and “rat tail oncidiums.” Because of their vastly different floral morphology, the species of Trichocentrum have never been placed in Oncidium, although several authors have recently suggested a close relationship to this vegetatively modified group. The analysis of cpDNA presented here supports this affinity; in fact, it places Trichocentrum as a derivative of the mule ear oncidiums.