The taxonomic study of Peperomia (Piperaceae) in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Yu-Chen Lu, 呂祐甄
• Other Authors: T. Y. Aleck Yang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/05955051605832044529

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 生命科學系所 === 103 === The genus Peperomia is distributed extensively in pantropic and subtropic. Five species and 1 uncertain species were recorded in Flora of Taiwan, 2nd ed. The authors of Flora of China treated some Taiwan’s species, inculding P. formosana, P. japonica, P. laticaulis and P. sui as synonyms of P. blanda. However ,the authors only examined the dried specimens, without seeing the living materials. Peperomia is succulent plant, there are many differences between living ones and dried specimen. On the other hand, some characteristics easily disappear in dried materials. In this study, Peperomia species were studied by morphology, anatomy, palynology, phenology and molecular phylogeny, and almost all researches used living materials. My results concluded that there are 6 species of Taiwanese Peperomia : P. dindygulensis, P. japonica, P. nakaharai, P. pellucida, P. rubrivenosa and P. tetraphylla. Based on the morphological and phylogeny of ITS sequences, I will separate two species, P. dindygulensis and P. japonica from P. blanda. Moreover, I also treat P. formosana and P. laticaulis as synonyms of P. japonica. After comparing the characteristics of living and dried specimens, I put P. sui as a synonym of P. dindygulensis.