Diplostephium

Diplostephium
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Asterales
Family:	Asteraceae
Tribe:	Astereae
Genus:	Diplostephium Kunth
Species
See text.

Diplostephium is a genus of trees and shrubs composed of approximately 110 species (Ulloa & Jørgensen, 2004). It is distributed on high mountains zones from Venezuela to Chile with the exception of two species in Costa Rica (INBio information system, July 2005) and twelve in the "Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta" (Colombia). It makes part of the high andean forest and the paramo ecosystems. Colombia has the most species with 63 (Vargas & Madriñán, 2006), the majority of them found in the Oriental Cordillera, which has 33 registered species until this moment. Diplostephium is the third most diverse genus on the paramos with 70 species after Pentacalia and Senecio (Luteyn, 1999).

According to José Cuatrecasas, (1986) the genus is an element of Neotropical origin that could have reached the paramos from the souther latitudes of South America; where the primitive arboreal species can be found in the high Andean forest while the most advanced members can be found in the paramos and super-paramos. This reinforces previous theories from Cuatrecasas (1969), who proposed as atavistic characteristics the morphologies present in the arboreal species of high andean forest. Based on this, Cuatrecasas made a phylogenetic ordination into natural groups or series where the deriveted species are more diverse and are found at high altitudes.

Selected species

• Diplostephium antisanense
• Diplostephium asplundii
• Diplostephium barclayanum
• Diplostephium crypteriophyllum
• Diplostephium ericoides
• Diplostephium espinosae
• Diplostephium juniperinum
• Diplostephium macrocephalum
• Diplostephium oblanceolatum
• Diplostephium ramiglabrum

External links

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