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The paper substantiates the importance of research in the field of ecological morphology when introducing woody species to culture in more severe climatic conditions compared to natural habitats. A set of techniques used for introduction experiments with trees, shrubs and woody lianas is described. The authors have carried out a comparative analysis of life forms of the same species in the monsoon climate in the Far East in places of natural growth (according to literature data) and in the sharply continental climate of the Altai Mountains at the point of introduction (according to long-term observations). It has been revealed that the most frequent adaptive manifestation is the change of life form in the following directions: summer green tree above 10 m → summer green tree up to 10 m; summer green shrub above 2 m → summer green shrub 1–2 m. The least adapted ones were representatives of evergreen and wintergreen biomorphs. Berberis amurense , Corylus heterophylla , Cotoneaster dammeri , Pentaphylloides davurica , Lonicera chrysantha , Forsythia ovata , Eleutherococcus senticocus , Stephanandra incise , Rubus matsumuranus , Rubus crataegifolius , Rosa rugosa showed a high degree of winter hardiness (I score) among shrubs.

Neillieae was traditionally recognized as a small tribe in Rosaceae, which consists of Neillia, Stephanan- dra, and Physocarpus. Recently, Stephanandra was merged into Neillia based on molecular phylogenetic analyses, meaning that Neillieae now contains Neillia and Physocarpus. The genus Neillia is distinguished from Physocarpus by ovate to lanceolate leaves with acuminate to caudate apices, racemose or paniculate inflorescences, and a unicarpellate (rarely bicarpellate) gynoecium. Plants of Neillia are distributed from the Himalayas across China and Korea to Japan in the east, and south to Indonesia. This study provides a taxonomic treatment of Neillia based on a morphological exam- ination of herbarium specimens, including types, and field observations, as the second part of the taxonomic revision of the tribe Neillieae. A summary of the phylogeny of Neillia, keys to the species, nomenclatural reviews, descriptions, dis- tribution maps, and lists of specimens examined are provided. Twelve species with ten varieties are recognized in Neillia. A lectotype was designated here for the following species: N. sinensis f. glanduligera and N. thyrsiflora.

The tribe Neillieae, a small group of about 18 species in the Rosaceae, comprises three taxonomically difficult genera, Neillia, Physocarpus, and Stephanandra. The tribe, characterized by lobed leaves with persistent or deciduous stipules and ovoid, shiny seeds with copious endosperm, is strongly supported as a monophyletic group by a variety of lines of molecular evidence. Due to the high amount of morphological variation across the three genera and the species in tribe Neillieae, conflicting classification schemes and numerous species have been proposed over the past three centuries. However, no comprehensive systematic study of the group, including all species across their geographic ranges, has ever been undertaken. As part of a taxonomic revision of tribe Neillieae, a revision of Phys- ocarpus based on the morphological examination of herbarium specimens, including types, and field observation is presented. Artificial keys, comprehensive nomenclatural treatments, descriptions, distribution maps, and lists of spec- imens examined are provided. Six species in Physocarpus are recognized. A lectotype is here designated for the fol- lowing species: Opulaster pubescens, Opulaster ramaleyi, Spiraea opulifolia var. parvifolia, Spiraea opulifolia var. tomentella, Physocarpus michiganensis, and Physocarpus missouriensis.

Putative PISTILLATA genes were generated in nine species of Neillia, to examine the phylogenetic relationships among the species, and to test the hypothesis of hybrid origin within the genus. The PI genes determined in Neillia have two introns in the I-box region, which is consistent with PI genes in other Rosaceae. Phylogenetic analyses of the I-box region, including the introns, indicated that the species formerly classified in Stephanandra were nested within Neillia, supporting the taxonomic merger of the two genera. The PI data do not have a sufficiently strong signal to reject the hypothesis that Stephanandra is a hybrid in origin. The PI data, in conjunction with nuclear LEAFY, ribosomal DNA, and chloroplast DNA data, suggest that N. affinis might have been derived from hybridization between N. thibetica and N. gracilis. The phylogenetic position of N. affinis in the N. thibetica clade is supported by the PI and rDNA data, whereas N. affinis is also supported as a sister to N. gracilis in the LEAFY and cpDNA data. The pattern of phylogenetic placements of N. affinis in two different clades in two different sets of data suggests that the genome of the species might be comprised of a combination of the putative parental species.

Recent phylogenetic analyses of tribe Neillieae in Rosaceae, which comprises Neillia, Physocarpus, and Stephanandra, based on both nuclear and chloroplast DNA sequences revealed that Neillia and Stephanandra together form a strongly supported monophyletic group and that species of Stephanandra are nested within Neillia. The close relationship between Neillia and Stephanandra is also supported by leaf morphology, inflorescence type, and carpel number. In order to better reflect the evolutionary relationships among species of Neillia and Stephanandra, based on molecular phylogenetic and morphological evidence, Stephanandra is united with Neillia, and three traditionally recognized species and a hybrid of Stephanandra are transferred to Neillia. This treatment results in new combinations as follows: N. hanceana (Kuntze) S. Oh, N. incisa (Thunberg) S. Oh, and N.×nakatsu-riparia (H. Takahashi) S. Oh. Stephanandra incisa (Thunberg) Zabel var. macrophylla Hideo Takahashi is treated as a new synonym of N...

A phylogeny of the tribe Neillieae (Rosaceae), which comprises Neillia, Stephanandra, and Physocarpus, was reconstructed based on nucleotide sequences of several regions of cpDNA, the ITS and ETS regions of rDNA, and the second intron of LEAFY, to elucidate relationships among genera and species in Neillieae and to assess the historical biogeography of the tribe. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that Physocarpus and Neillia-Stephanandra were strongly supported as monophyletic and suggested that Stephanandra may have originated by hybridization between two lineages of Neillia. Dispersal-vicariance analyses suggested that the most recent common ancestor of Neillieae may have occupied eastern Asia and western North America and that Physocarpus and Neillia-Stephanandra may have been split by an intercontinental vicariance event in the early Miocene. The biogeographic analyses also suggested that species of Neillia and Stephanandra diversified in eastern Asia, whereas in Physocarpus one dispersal event from western North America to eastern Asia occurred. Two divergent types of LEAFY sequences were found in the eastern North American species, P. opulifolius, but only one type was present in each plant. The two types of sequences may represent homeologous genes that originated by hybridization between P. capitatus and P. monogynus, both western North American species.

The chromosome number and karyotype of two Japanese Stephanandra species, S. incisa and S. tanakae, were investigated. Both species had the same chromosome counts of n=9 and 2n=18, which showed that the basic chromosome number of the genus was x=9. The two species had similar karyotypes, with 7 metacentric pairs, one of which had a satellite, and 2 submetacentric pairs.

A homeotic gene, LEAFY, has been suggested to be a single-copy gene in diploid angiosperms. Nucleotide sequences of the second intron of this gene, along with those of several regions of the chloroplast genome (trnL-trnF, trnD-trnY-trnE-trnT, and matK-trnK) and nuclear ribosomal ITS, were obtained from the species of Neillia and Stephanandra to examine the phylogenetic utility of the intron and to elucidate the phylogenetic relationships among species of the two genera. PCR amplification of the second intron of LEAFY using universal degenerate primers produced PCR products in sufficient quantity for successful direct sequencing. The length of the intron ranged from 591 to 622 base pairs (bp) in Neillia and Stephanandra, except in N. thibetica (ca. 1370 bp), and sequence analysis of this region from multiple accessions revealed low levels of infraspecific variation. Comparison of the LEAFY data with ITS and cpDNA data demonstrated that the LEAFY intron was the most variable and useful for phylogenetic analysis at the species level, providing many more phylogenetically informative characters per 100 bp (7.4) than either ITS (3.2) or cpDNA (0.7). Phylogenetic analyses of LEAFY data using both maximum parsimony and likelihood methods generated well supported and highly resolved gene trees with few homoplasies (CI=0.97). Stephanandra is monophyletic and is nested within Neillia in both LEAFY and cpDNA trees, while the relationship is poorly resolved by ITS data. LEAFY and cpDNA data, however, strongly conflicted with each other with respect to the position of Stephanandra: LEAFY trees placed Stephanandra as sister to the ((N. affinis, N. gracilis), N. thyrsiflora) clade whereas cpDNA data suggested Stephanandra is sister to N. uekii. Both gene trees, however, are nearly identical to each other when Stephanandra is excluded. A hybrid origin of Stephanandra is suggested as a plausible hypothesis to explain the incongruence between LEAFY and cpDNA data sets, though gene duplication/loss and lineage sorting events cannot be ruled out as possibilities.

There are a lot of plants used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, which in Europe play a role as ornamental shrubs. To such plants belong also Staphylea (Staphyleaceae) and Stephanandra (Rosaceae) species. Only limited information is known about biological activities and chemical composition of these plants.

A B S T R A C T The carpels of the Holodisceae, Neillieae, Spiraeeae, and Ulmarieae are usually separate from one another; most have open sutures, and their ovules tend to be monotegmic. The ovules are epitropic in Holodisceae, Spiraeeae, and Ulmarieae; they may be pleurotropic, apotropic, or epitropic in the Neillieae. In many species the carpels are partly fused with the floral cup. Only in Luetkea and some species of Spiraea and Stephanandra are the ovular and wing bundles separate at the base of the locule; in the other species ventral bundles persist above that level before dividing. In species with open sutures, the ovules are mostly bitegmic, and the ovular bundles tend to be separate from the wing bundles at the insertion level. An evolutionary trend towards fusion of the two ventral bundles with each other and with the dorsal bundle is shown. In Filipendula the dorsal bundle may be absent. A possible relationship between the Spiraeoideae and the Pomoideae is discussed. THE FEATURES of carpels in presumably primi