Cephalanthus [SEP] parent taxon
Cephalanthus
Cephalanthus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. There are about six species that are commonly known as buttonbush.
Description.
They are shrubs or small trees growing to tall. The leaves are simple, arranged in opposite pairs or whorls of three. The flowers form a dense globular inflorescence.
Distribution and habitat.
"Cephalanthus occidentalis" is native to the eastern United States and Canada. The others occur in tropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Two species are known
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of