{"id":918,"date":"2019-12-08T17:03:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-08T17:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/herbarium\/?p=918"},"modified":"2019-12-08T17:50:22","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T17:50:22","slug":"adventbotany-2019-day-8-epiphytic-ericaceae-christmas-baubles-of-the-cloud-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/herbarium\/2019\/12\/08\/adventbotany-2019-day-8-epiphytic-ericaceae-christmas-baubles-of-the-cloud-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"#AdventBotany 2019 Day 8: Epiphytic Ericaceae – Christmas baubles of the cloud forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Robbie Blackhall-Miles<\/a><\/h1>\n

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Diversity fascinates me and when a plant family is as big as the Ericaceae<\/em> I can\u2019t help but to want to understand the processes that led to such diversity. I tend to poke about in the edges of the family looking for the obscure and the wonderful, the most adapted and extreme.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Ericaceae,<\/em> most that know about plants would easily tell you that they know the family. There are many well-known members including blueberry,\u00a0huckleberry,\u00a0rhododendrons\u00a0and of course the heathers. The one most closely associated with the festive season is the cranberry, yet there is much more to this family of plants than the glaring flowers of Rhododendron<\/em> and the sour berries that we make into sauce.<\/p>\n

The family is huge, I mean really huge, 4250 known species in 124 genera,\u00a0placing it 14th<\/sup> in the list of most species-rich flowering plant families.<\/p>\n

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Agapetes serpens<\/em> in flower (R. Blackhall-Miles)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You would expect a family so big to have been around for a long time, evolving slowly but surely, and in the Ericaceae<\/em> that is partially true. The earliest fossil evidence of the family is that of a small fossil called Paleoenkianthus<\/em> from the late Cretaceous. Yet the diversity currently seen in the family is much more modern than that and driven by unique pollinators, volcanic ash, isolation and large-scale landscape change.<\/p>\n

The Ericaceae is split up into various sub families, the largest of these being Ericoideae<\/em>\u00a0a subfamily containing nineteen\u00a0genera, and 1,790 species, the most numerous of which is Rhododendron<\/em> with a whopping 1000+ species (and growing all the time).<\/p>\n

For \u2018ease of management\u2019, these subfamilies are then broken down further into various tribes.<\/p>\n

In the subfamily Vaccinioideae<\/em> sits a monophyletic tribe of over 1000 species called the Vaccinieae<\/em>: the taxonomic home of the cranberry.<\/p>\n

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Cranberry in flower (R. Blackhall-Miles)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is, however, also the home to a bunch of closely related genera that have evolved on two separate continents to fill the same niche environment. A range of plants that have tapped into two convergently evolved groups of birds to pollinate them and in doing so have become two of those extreme, obscure and wonderful Ericaceae<\/em>. They make my eyes light up like a child opening the presents under the tree.<\/p>\n

I am talking of Agapetes, Costera<\/em> and Dimorphanthera<\/em> \u00a0in Asia and the Epiphytic blueberries of Central and South America; Anthopteropsis<\/em>, Anthopterus, Cavendishia, Ceratostema, Calopteryx, Demosthenesia, Didonica, Diogenesia, Disterigma, Gonocalyx, Macleania, Mycerinus, Notopora, Oreanthes, Orthaea, Pellegrinia, Plutarchia, Polyclita, Psammisia, Rusbya, Satyria, Semiramisia, Siphonandra, Sphyrospermum, Symphysia, Themistoclesia, Thibaudia<\/em> and\u00a0Utleya<\/em>.<\/p>\n