condition. Fruits have little variation in the Lauraceae, while accessory parts do vary widely. 
Two critical points to decide here are whether deciduous tepals are a primitive condition, and 
whether or not accrescent hypanthium in fruit is a primitive condition. In Hortonia, fruits are 
drupes borne by a scarcely thickened receptacle having on its rim the withered sepals. 
Receptacles for most of the other groups in the Monimiaceae surround the fruits and split at 
maturity, while in others the upper part is shed as a calyptra. 
Characters used for the cladistic analysis of the genera and their states are commented on 
next. In principle, these characters are those that have been traditionally used to separate the 
genera in the family Lauraceae, features for which there was an interest to test their potential 
power in showing relationships among taxa in the context of an evolutionary frame. 
1. Phyllotaxy. This is one of the few characters that can be analyzed by the outgroup 
algorithm proposed by Maddison et al. (1984) at the family level, using cladograms in figs. 2, 3 
and 4 from Qiu et al. (1993) as reference for outgroup phylogeny. Then, opposite leaves is 
considered the ancestral condition for leaf arrangement. Trend of change to other conditions is 
left unordered. 0, opposite leaves; 1, alternate leaves; 2, "fascicled" leaves. 
2. Venation pattern. Triplinerved leaves are rather typical in several genera of the 
Lauraceae, but they also occur at low frequencies within some of the typically pinninerved 
genera. In Hortonia (Monimiaceae), one species out of three is also with triplinerved leaves. 
However, the decision on character polarization is based on the proportion of taxa with one or the 
other condition 1n venation pattern (Watrous & Wheeler, 1981); thus pinninerved leaves are 
considered plesiomorphic. 0, leaves pinninerved; 1, leaves triplinerved. 
3. Integrity of leaves. Lobed leaves is a very rare condition within the Lauraceae, and 
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