''Diplostephium'' is a genus of trees and shrubs in the family

Asteraceae Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...

.Kunth, Karl (Carl) Sigismund. 1818. Nova Genera et Species Plantarum (folio ed.) 4: page 75, plate 335.Tropicos, ''Diplostephium'' Kunth
/ref> ''Diplostephium'' is distributed on high mountains zones from

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

with the exception of two species in

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

(INBio information system, July 2005) and twelve in the "Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta" (Colombia). It makes part of the high andean forest and the paramo ecosystems.

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

has the most species with 63 (Vargas & Madriñán, 2006), the majority of them found in the Oriental Cordillera, which has 33 registered species until this moment. Diplostephium is the third most diverse genus on the paramos with 70 species after ''Pentacalia'' and ''Senecio'' (Luteyn, 1999). According to

José Cuatrecasas José Cuatrecasas (1903–1996) was a Spanish botanist. He was born on March 19, 1903, in Camprodon, Catalonia, Spain. His research focused on the high-elevation páramo and sub-páramo regions of the Andes Mountains in South America, especiall ...

, (1986) the genus is an element of Neotropical origin that could have reached the paramos from the southern latitudes of South America; where the primitive arboreal species can be found in the high Andean forest while the most advanced members can be found in the paramos and super-paramos. This reinforces previous theories from Cuatrecasas (1969), who proposed as atavistic characteristics the morphologies present in the arboreal species of high Andean forest. Based on this, Cuatrecasas made a phylogenetic ordination into natural groups or series where the derived species are more diverse and are found at high altitudes. Species accepted by the

Plants of the World Online Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online taxonomic database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. History Following the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew launched Plants of the World Online i ...

as of December 2022:

References

External links

Welcome to ''Diplostephium'', a webpage devoted to the study of the genus and its allies.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2712859 Flora of Southern America Asteraceae genera Páramo flora