Evolution and Development of Tendrils in Bignonieae (Lamiales, Bignoniaceae)1

The tribe Bignonieae includes all Neotropical lianescent Bignoniaceae. The leaves of Bignonieae are generally 2- or 3-foliolate, with terminal leaflets modified into a tendril. These tendrils have varied morphologies and are thought to have been involved in the diversification of Bignonieae. Little, however, is still known about the biology and evolution of tendrils. This study investigated the evolution and development of tendril types in Bignonieae in order to further understand how changes in leaf morphogenesis led to current patterns of variation in tendril morphology. For that, we investigated the ontogeny of 11 species representing a wide diversity of tendril types (i.e., simple, trifid, and multifid) and used a recently published phylogeny of Bignonieae as the basis to reconstruct patterns of evolution for tendril types. For those analyses, we used maximum likelihood (ML) and maximum parsimony (MP) approaches, with both ACCTRAN and DELTRAN optimization schemes implemented in the latter. An...