Megaskepasma Lindau.

Megaskepasma Lindau.

— Megaskepasma is a unispecific genus of Justicieae: Justiciinae that is presumably native to northern South America, but known primarily only from cultivation. Our approximate count of n = ca. 26 for M. erythrochlamys Lindau is the first one for the genus. Based on molecular data, Kiel et al. (2017) showed that Megaskepasma is resolved in the “South American Poikilacanthus clade” of the New World “justicioid lineage,” sister to the other sampled members of that clade. The only previous count for Poikilacanthus Lindau (i.e., for P. macranthus Lindau in the “Brandegeeana clade,” which also consists of several North and Central American species of that genus and Justicia) is n = 14 (Daniel 2000a), which number agrees with counts for at least five other members of its clade (Kiel et al. 2017). The only previous count for another member of the South American Poikilacanthus clade is n = 28 for J. tweediana (Nees) Griseb. (Piovano and Bernardello 1991). Our count, undoubtedly a polyploid (and possibly also a dysploid), would appear to be more in accordance with that of a member of the clade in which it has been resolved based on molecular data, than with species in the Brandegeeana clade. One might hypothesize that other members of the South American Poikilacanthus clade will have similarly high chromosome numbers.