Elucidating a morphological and taxonomic continuum in <em>Pappophorum</em> (Poaceae: Chloridoideae)

Pappophorum Schreb. is a genus of perennial grasses included in Chloridoideae, found in arid and semiarid grasslands of the Americas. The genus is monophyletic, a sister group to Tridens Roem. &amp; Schult., and the clade formed by these two is sister to Neesiochloa Pilg. Some taxonomic treatments in Pappophorum have repositioned taxa and indicated synonymizations based on morphological attributes. One of the classic examples of delimitation proposals in the genus concerns the morphological boundaries between P. subbulbosum and P. mucronulatum in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as between P. vaginatum in the Northern Hemisphere. This complex species serves as a valuable biological model, demonstrating that comparing delimitation proposals with phenotypic data can be sufficient for discussing and clarifying taxonomic issues. In this study, we tested species circumscription proposals as taxonomic hypotheses using a statistical framework that assesses the possibility of classifying all va..., , , # Data from: Elucidating a morphological and taxonomic continuum in *Pappophorum* (Poaceae: Chloridoideae) ## 1. Overview This repository contains the morphological dataset used in the manuscript: **Elucidating a morphological and taxonomic continuum in** ***Pappophorum*** **(Poaceae: Chloridoideae)**. The dataset includes continuous and categorical characters collected from the herbarium and digitized specimens of *Pappophorum* species. The matrix supports all statistical analyses performed in the study. --- ## 2. File Description ### **1.** **`Couceiro_et_al._2026_Pappophorum_specimens.zip`** CSV file containing supp_matrix_metadata_YC.csv and supp_matrix_legend_YC.csv: * Morphological characters measured for all specimens. * Continuous variables (e.g., awn length, lemma measurements). * Categorical variables (e.g., panicle type, presence/absence of glands). * Specimen metadata (collector, character values). * NA-coded values for non-evaluated characters. * Commas are used as...