Platycarpha is a genus of South African plants within the family Asteraceae.Tropicos, Platycarpha Less.Lessing, Christian Friedrich. 1831. Linnaea 6: 688. in Latin It contains a single species, Platycarpha glomerata, which is native to the Cape Provinces and KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
The name Platycarpha is derived from two Greek words, platys "broad" and karphos "a chip of straw or wood, a scale, a dry stalk".Umberto Quattrocchi. 2000. CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names. volume III, page 2098. CRC Press: Baton Rouge, New York, London, Washington DC. (vol. III). (see External links below). The name was first used by Christian Friedrich Lessing in 1831.Christian Friedrich Lessing. 1831. "De Synanthereis. Dissertatis quarta, auctore Chr. Fr. Lessing" Linnaea 6:688. (see External links below). The type species is Platycarpha glomerata.Platycarpha In: Index Nominum Genericorum. In: Regnum Vegetabile (see External links below). This species had been named Cynara glomerata by Carl Peter Thunberg in 1800,Carl Peter Thunberg. 1800. Prodromus Plantarum Capensium volume 2: 141. (see External links below). and was moved to Platycarpha by A.P. de Candolle in 1836 in Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis.Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. 1836. Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis 5:71. (see External links below).
The genus formerly contained three species. Studies suggested splitting Platycarpha into two genera, Platycarpha and Platycarphella, with two species placed in Platycarphella.Per Ola Karis. 2007. "Arctotideae" pages 200-207. In: Klaus Kubitzki (series editor); Joachim W. Kadereit and Charles Jeffrey (volume editors). The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants volume VIII. Springer-Verlag: Berlin; Heidelberg, Germany. David J. Mabberley. 2008. Mabberley's Plant-Book third edition (2008). Cambridge University Press: UK. The systematic position of Platycarpha has long been regarded with uncertainty. Most authors have placed it in the tribe Arctotideae until molecular phylogenetic studies showed it to be closer to Vernonieae.Vicki A. Funk, Raymund Chan, Stirling C. Keeley. 2004. "Insights into the evolution of the tribe Arctoteae (Compositae: subfamily Cichorioideae s.s.) using trnL-F, ndhF, and ITS". Taxon 53(3):637-655. In 2009, the new tribe Platycarpheae was established for Platycarpha and Platycarphella.Vicki A. Funk, Alfonso Susanna, Tod F. Stuessy, and Randall J. Bayer. 2009. Systematics, Evolution and Biogeography of the Compositae. IAPT (International Association for Plant Taxonomy).
References
External links Platycarpha At:Plants of southern Africa At: PlantZAfrica.com CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names: M-Q At: Google Books Platycarpha In: Linnaea volume 6 Platycarpha At:Index Nominum Genericorum At: References At: NMNH Department of Botany At: Research and Collections At: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Cynara In: Prodromus Plantarum Capensium volume 2 Platycarpha In: Prodr. (DC.) volume 5