Phenakospermum [SEP] parent taxon
Phenakospermum
Phenakospermum is a monotypic genus in the family Strelitziaceae. Only one species is recognized, Phenakospermum guyannense, native to Surinam, French Guyane and the eastern Amazon River basin. This plant grows to over 10 m in height but can be felled with a single blow with a machete.
Although not as prized as the ornamental Traveler's palm (in the same family), "P. guyannense" is used locally in Brazil as a landscape element. The broad leaves are used to wrap fish in Benevides, Brazil
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