Heterostyly in the Lamiaceae:: The case of Salvia brandegeei

Heterostyly rarely occurs in families with strongly zygomorphic flowers. For this reason Darwin (1877) doubted whether heterostyly would occur in the Lamiaceae and recent reviews have not reported the floral polymorphism in this family. Here we describe distyly in a rare species of Salvia restricted to bluffs and seaward canyons on Santa Rosa Island (Santa Barbara Co., California) and northwestern Baja California (Mexico). Salvia brandegeei is morphologically distylous with populations composed of equal frequencies of long- and short-styled morphs differing reciprocally in stigma and anther position. Controlled hand pollinations demonstrated no significant differences in the seed set of self, intramorph or intermorph pollinations. Unlike most heterostylous species investigated, S. brandegeei does not possess diallelic incompatibility or ancillary polymorphisms of pollen and stigmas. We propose that the evolution of distyly in S. brandegeei may have been associated with an ecological shift to a new environment in which protandry failed to prevent increased levels of geitonogamy. Heterostyly was then selected because it increased the proficiency of cross-pollination. The origin of distyly in self-compatible S. brandegeei is consistent with Lloyd and Webb's theoretical model for the evolution of distyly.