Cryptic goldfields: a molecular phylogenetic reinvestigation of Lasthenia californica sensu lato and close relatives (Compositae: Heliantheae sensu lato)

Maximum parsimony analysis of DNA sequence data from the internal and external transcribed spacer (ITS and ETS) regions of 18S‐26S nuclear ribosomal DNA and the 39 trnK intron of chloroplast DNA from over 60 populations of Lasthenia sect. Amphiachaenia yielded a well-supported tree showing that the most common species of Lasthenia, L. californica sensu lato (s.l.), is not monophyletic. Members of Lasthenia californica s.l. belong to two well-supported but morphologically cryptic clades. One clade includes members of L. macrantha; the other represents a basally divergent lineage in L. sect. Amphiachaenia. Members of each clade can be diagnosed by pappus morphology and by geographic distribution, except for epappose plants that occur in a broad region of sympatry in central California. Overall diversification in the clade corresponding to L. sect. Amphiachaenia has been accompanied by minimal morphological divergence, which has resulted in previously underappreciated cryptic diversity.