Morphological phylogenetic analysis of seven varieties of Ficus deltoidea Jack from the Malay Peninsula of Malaysia

This study is the first report to suggest a morphological phylogenetic framework for the seven varieties of Ficus deltoidea Jack (Ficus: Moraceae) from the Malay Peninsula of Malaysia. Several molecular-based classifications on the genus Ficus had been proposed, but neither had discussed the relationship between seven varieties of F. deltoidea to its allies nor within the varieties. The relationship between seven varieties of F. deltoidea is still debated due to the extreme morphological variabilities and ambiguous boundaries between taxa. Thus, the correct identification of these varieties is important as several morphological characters are variety-specific. To test the monophyly and further resolved the relationship in F. deltoidea, a morphological phylogenetic analysis was conducted based on herbarium specimens representing the seven varieties of F. deltoidea that were collected from the Malay Peninsula of Malaysia, by using related species of the genus Ficus; F. grossularioides, F. ischnopoda and F. oleifolia as the outgroups. Parsimony and neighbour-joining analyses indicated that F. deltoidea is monophyletic, in that the seven varieties of F. deltoidea nested into two clades; clade subspecies deltoidea (var. deltoidea, var. bilobata, var. angustifolia, var. kunstleri and var. trengganuensis) and clade subspecies motleyana (var. intermedia and var. motleyana).