Artocarpeae is a tribe within the plant family Moraceae. It includes 7 to 12 genus and 70 to 87 species including Artocarpus altilis, the breadfruit.
Description
Species in the Artocarpeae are tropical trees or shrubs which, like all members of the Moraceae, produce
latex. Most are
dioecious, although some are
monoecious. The male and female
include a variety of elongate or compact structures. The Artocarpeae is the least homogeneous of the five tribes that make up the Moraceae.
Taxonomy
The tribe is based on the genus
Artocarpus, the largest and best-known genus in the group. The first post-Linnaean description of the species was done by
Sydney Parkinson during
James Cook's first voyage to the
Pacific. Parkinson, an artist employed by
Joseph Banks, died on the return leg of the voyage and his descriptions were published posthumously by his brother Stanfield Parkinson in 1773 in
A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas. Parkinson named the species
Sitodium altile. Three years later, Johann Reinhold Forster and
Georg Forster published a description of the species using the name
Artocarpus communis.
Over the next 160 years the name
Artocarpus was much more widely used, leading to its preservation as a
conserved name.
Distribution
Members of the Artocarpeae are native to tropical
Asia, the
Indo-Pacific, southern
Africa,
Madagascar and the
Neotropics. In addition, members of the genus
Artocarpus are cultivated throughout the tropics, especially
Artocarpus altilis, the breadfruit, and
A. heterophyllus, the jackfruit.
[
]
The native range of Artocarpus, the largest genus, includes tropical Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, the Philippines and Micronesia. Artocarpus altilis, was introduced across Oceania by Polynesians colonists.[ Batocarpus and Clarisia are native to the Neotropics.][
]
Genera
in a new tribe parartocarpeae
in a new tribe parartocarpeae
