The evolution of unisexual flowers in the Annonaceae: evidence from Pseuduvaria mulgraveana

Abstract

The early-divergent angiosperm family Annonaceae has predominantly hermaphroditic flowers, although unisexuality has evolved in several disparate lineages. Pseuduvaria, an Asian-Pacific distributed genus with 57 species has largely unisexual flowers. A recent monograph of this genus reported that many species have both staminate and structurally hermaphroditic flowers; the latter were previously considered to be functionally pistillate, with stamens that produce small, irregular pollen that was likely to be sterile. We investigated the viability of the freshly-...