A Taxonomic Update of Neotropical Pradosia (Sapotaceae, Chrysophylloideae)

Abstract

We provide a systematic update of Pradosia (Sapotaceae, Chrysophylloideae), including overall morphology, a key to all species, comprehensive morphological descriptions, geographic distributions, and important characteristics for each species. Phylogenetic analyses based on molecular data demonstrated that the genus is monophyletic and includes three main clades. Twenty-three species of Pradosia are accepted, which are mostly distributed in lowland rainforests on either white-sand or clayish soils in tropical South America. A rotate corolla with a short tube, lack of staminodes, a drupaceous fruit with plano-convex cotyledons, an exserted radicle below the cotyledons, and the absence of endosperm are diagnostic for the genus. Two names are reduced into synonymy, viz. Pradosia atroviolacea Ducke, syn. of P. grisebachii (Pierre) T. D. Penn., and Pradosia verrucosa Ducke, syn. of P. glaziovii (Pierre) T. D. Penn. The affinity of P. argentea (Kunth) T. D. Penn., a species known only from the type collection, remains uncertain and for now excluded from the genus. © 2016 by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists.