Aspects of aroid geography

• Main Author: Mayo, Simon J
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 1993
• Subjects: South Atlantic Ocean
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198545774.003.0004; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52367643/isbn-9780198545774-book-part-4.pdf

Abstract It would be understandable if the reader were puzzled to find in the present volume a discussion of a family of organisms which shows only weak and distant relationships across the South Atlantic Ocean. There are, after all, many other tropical plant taxa which show striking disjunctions between Africa and South America (Thorne 1973a and Good 1974 give lists of genera). In at least a proportion of these cases, such disjunctions are probably evidence of previous land continuity between the continents. There are, nevertheless, good reasons for considering the geographical patterns shown by taxa which do not fit neatly into the simple vicariance model represented by the tectonic splitting of South America and Africa.