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(Fig. 1.1), latinized Carolus Clusius, son of a noble family, was the greatest botanist of his time (; ; ). He was born in Arras in 1526. He studied law at Lovain and Marburg and later medicine at Wittenberg, Montpellier and Paris and also lived in various other European cities including Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Antwerp and London. He travelled in Spain and Portugal, in the European Alps and in Hungary. In Vienna he founded a medical garden — — in 1573. In 1592, at the age of 66, he was appointed director of the in Leyden (), one of the six oldest gardens in Europe founded in 1587, where he died in 1609. Due to his extensive travels in Europe he was intimately familiar with the European flora. He discovered many new species, which he described and depicted thoroughly. He introduced tulips to the Netherlands and was involved in the introduction of potato to European gardens providing its first detailed description in 1601 although at the time the great nutritional value of potato for large populations was not yet appreciated.

On 26 March 1983 we climbed the highest elevation of the island of Trinidad, Cerro del Aripo, 941 m a.s.l. We were studying epiphytic C and CAM bromeliads. It was the same year when Tinoco Ojanguren and Vazquez Yanes (1983) published their discovery of CAM in .However, at that time we did not know about it. Later we discovered that we even had a branch of in the cover photograph (Fig. II.1) depicting in the special issue number 5, vol. 9, Plant Cell and Environment (1986) with our bromeliad work. One other member of the Cerro del Aripo crew of 1983, , Cambridge, UK, later also became a enthusiast, and therefore we now know that on Trinidad — in addition to the ubiquitous L. — there are three endemic species, namely Britt., Britt. and Britt. (Borland et al. 1992, Sect. 9.4.2.9). In view of the endemism of the species in Trinidad it is interesting to note that in the phylogenetic tree of Fig. 6.1 (Chap. 6) the three branches which have , and in them are separated at the very base of the tree. ( is not contained in this tree.) Thus, the endemic species must have evolved separately from a basic original ancestor on the island.

The 300 to 400 woody species of all display one typical morphotype (). s are branched shrubs and trees with dichasial cymes and opposite leaves (see also Sect. 6.1). Among the various species leaves vary in absolute size. However, the leaves of all species are morphologically and anatomically very similar, always entire, leathery and somewhat succulent (Fig. 2.1). In view of the important effects of leaf form and structure on photosynthesis and ecophysiological performance (Niinemets and Sack 2005), this is remarkable particularly with respect to the large photosynthetic flexibility of some species of . However, this has not been much explored for . On the other hand, floral morphology of s is rather variable (Sect. 6.5).

Cox and Moore (1993), in their classic “Biogeography” text book, broadly define this discipline as “the study of living things in a spatial and temporal context”. They argue that biogeography studies will often provide answers to questions such as: “a) Why are there so many living things? b) Why are they distributed the way they are? c) Have they always occupied their current distribution patterns? d) Do man’s activities today affect these patterns and if so, what are the prospects for the future?” Ideally, therefore, whenever a complete account of biogeography is available, all these questions should be answerable. In order to reach this stage of knowledge, one should have enough relevant information on the three main biogeographic processes: migration, evolution and extinction (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993). Since very little is known about these processes for , this chapter is by no means an attempt to provide a complete study of the biogeography of the genus. However, we use the four questions above as guidelines for this text.

The nurse-plant syndrome (see ) takes place when plant species shelter seedlings, young and/or adult individuals of other species through their ontogeny. The nurse-plant might then enhance fitness, survival and/or growth of associated species (; ). However, positive and negative interactions are unlikely to occur separately in nature (; ; ). This balance is affected by spatial and temporal shifts (; ; ) related to plant ontogenetic development and/or changes in resource availability (). For instance, the overall importance of positive interactions on community structure, such as the nurse-plant syndrome, is claimed to be higher in resource-poor environments (; ).

Most studies on the reproductive biology of species of the genus are limited in time, space and phenological scales that they cover. Floral biology descriptions are more abundant than studies on the possible ecological and evolutionary causes and consequences of sexual behaviour. For instance, Table 5.1, which is largely based on a previous list by Lopes and Machado (1998), shows information on 28 species more thoroughly studied, which adds up to ca. 10% or less of the 250–400 species belonging to the genus (; ).

L., with over 300 species, is one of the largest genera of the Clusiaceae (Guttiferae). According to a recent classification system (), the family comprises the subfamilies Clusioideae and Kielmeyeroideae. In earlier classifications it has often also included L. and related genera, the Hypericoideae (; [using the name Hypericaceae]; ). There is, however, growing evidence that the Hypericoideae do not form a monophyletic group with other Clusiaceae (; ), and in, e.g., the classification system by P. F. Stevens (), they are treated as a separate family, Hypericaceae. In the following, the name Clusiaceae is therefore used in the narrow sense, excluding and its relatives.

“Simple-Sequence-Repeats” (SSR) or “Microsatellites” are repeats of short sequence motifs with a length of 1 to 6 bp, which can be replicated up to 100 times () and occur in the non-coding regions of eucaryotic and chloroplast genomes in a very high diversity (). These sequence repeats are the main cause for the length polymorphisms of microsatellites in populations () and are very useful for molecular taxonomy and population genetics (). Due to the large number of microsatellites in eukaryotes, and a high diversity within species or populations, they are the most important markers for genomic mapping and relation studies (; ). Trimer primers are widespread, give the most suitable results (), and were used in many different studies before (; ; ; ; ). Successful amplification of polymorphic banding pattern was possible with trinucleotide primers such as AAC, AAG, and GTG (; ; ). Using AAC we were able to identify ecotypes of Brazil pine [ (Bert.) O. Ktze.; ].

L. is the most astonishing plant I ever had in my hands, and it offers fascinations much beyond the fact that is the only dicotyledonous tree genus with crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) (Chap.1). shows all possible variations of CAM as well as full C-photosynthesis. Only C-photosynthesis is missing in this species as well as in the whole genus as far as this can be seen. However, the plasticity and flexibility of is so large that different modes of photosynthesis, C and CAM, respectively, can be performed by two different opposite leaves at the same node and even by different parts of one leaf simultaneously (Chap. 8). displays all conceivable facets of CAM. It shows versatile dynamics of shifts between C-photosynthesis and CAM. Due to the longevity of its leaves for more than one season in these switches are reversible and can occur frequently and repeatedly, in contrast to the annual therophyte L. which is now very intensively studied and frequently considered the preferable model plant for C/CAM intermediate behaviour.

One of the great fascinations of the genus is that its single leaf morphotype (Sect. 2.1) expresses different photosynthetic physiotypes. Often different photosynthetic types are even expressed by the same species and even in clones of vegetatively propagated plants or in different leaves of single individual plants depending on environmental conditions. The photosynthetic types observed among s are based on the modes of C-photosynthesis and of crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) and its variants. Figure 8.1 presents a schematic overview of the basic features of the three to four different photosynthetic physiotypes found among s. Figures 8.2 and 8.3 show typical patterns of photosynthetic CO-gas exchange for different modes of photosynthesis expressed among four different species under identical conditions in a phytotron (Fig. 8.2) and for different modes of photosynthesis expressed in one species, L., under different conditions (Fig. 8.3), respectively.