Taxonomic Assessment of Five Numerical Methods and its Implications on the Classification of Hyptis s.l. (Labiatae)

Five fundamentally different numerical methods (ASOC, INFO, ISS, WPGMA and UPGMA) were used to analyze a data matrix comprising 33 characters recorded comparatively for 59 species of Hyptis sensu stricto, four Hyptidendron spp., two Hypenia spp., two Asterohyptis spp. and Raphiodon echinus. The five genera were segregated by different authors from Hyptis sensu lato. In our five numerical analyses, representative species of the latter four genera blended nicely with Hyptis s.s. and showed insufficient distinctness to warrant their separation from Hyptis s.l. While the result of UPGMA was the least similar to any of the other four analyses, those of ISS and WPGMA were highly similar, more taxonomically ‘realistic` than the rest and contributed to the proposal of a potentially useful hierarchical arrangement of the species.