Hieracium crinitopannosum Szeląg & Vladimirov, 2013

Szeląg, Zbigniew & Vladimirov, Vladimir, 2013, A new species of Hieracium sect. Pannosa (Asteraceae) from Bulgaria, Phytotaxa 108 (1), pp. 57-60 : 57-59

Hieracium crinitopannosum Szeląg & Vladimirov sp. nov. ( Fig. 1 )

Type: ― BULGARIA. Central Rhodopes , along the road from Devin town to Mihalkovo village, 625 m, 41°49'41"N, 24°26'55"E, 20 July 2004, Z. Szel ą g & V. Vladimirov (holotype SOM 169412 , isotypes KRA, Herb. Hierac. Z. Szeląg) .

Paratypes: ― BULGARIA. Central Rhodopes , 5–6 km from Mihalkovo village by the road to Krichim town, 550 m, 41°52'08"N, 24°25'07"E, 10 July 2011, V. Vladimirov ( SOM 169413 to 169417 , Herb. Hierac. Z. Szeląg) .

Affinity: ― Hieracium crinitopannosum is similar to H. cappadocicum Freyn (1891: 55) described from Turkey, but differs in the densely and conspicuously serrate-dentate leaves (see Szeląg 2012: 356, fig. 6).

Description: ―Rhizomatous perennial. Stem 25–55 cm high, robust, 4.0– 4.5 mm in diameter at the base, villous-lanate, covered by subplumose, 8–10(–13) mm long hairs. Leaves 8–13, gradually reduced upwards with conspicuously longer and denser indumentum at the base. Basal and lower cauline leaves crowded in a false rosette, leaf blades 10–16(–22) cm long and 4.5–5.5 cm wide, ovate-lanceolate, broadest near the middle, coarsely serrate-dentate, with 8–12 spreading teeth on each side, gradually tapered to a winged, 2– 3(4.5) cm long petiole; middle cauline leaves 8–11 cm long and 4–4.5 cm wide, ovate, serrate-dentate, subsessile; the upper cauline leaves smaller, broadly ovate, dentate, sessile; all leaves with sparse stellate hairs and dense subplumose hairs 2–3 mm long on the upper surface and sparse to moderate stellate hairs and dense subplumose hairs 4–6 mm long on the lower surface. Synflorescence with 3–9(–18) capitula (and occasionally some capitula aborted). Acladium 10–12 cm long. Synflorescence with 2–5 lateral branches, usually longer than acladium, each with 2–3 capitula. Peduncles covered with dense, stellate hairs and dense, flexuous, subplumose hairs 10–13 mm long. Flowering capitula 3–3.5 cm in diameter. Involucre subglobose, 12–13(15) mm long and 14–15 mm wide; involucral bracts linear-lanceolate, subacute at apex, 11–13 mm long and 1.3– 1.5 mm wide; the outermost ones with dense stellate hairs, moderate to dense flexuous hairs 5–6 mm long, and moderate minute glandular hairs 0.05–0.06 mm long, with membranous margin; the inner ones with wider membranous margin, along the midrib with dense papillae and stellate hairs, moderate to sparse microglandular hairs and flexuous simple hairs. Ligulate florets yellow, glabrous at apex. Styles yellow. Receptacular pits with membranous, glandular-ciliate margin. Achenes 3.5–4.0 mm long, stramineous, with yellowish-white pappus 6–7 mm long. Pollen in anthers numerous and of varying size.

Chromosome number: ―2n = 3x = 27.

Mode of reproduction: ―Agamospermous.

Phenology: ―Flowering July and August. Fruiting until September.

Distribution and habitat: ―The species has been recorded in a few sites in the Central Rhodopes, Bulgaria. It grows in places with open vegetation, e.g. eroded and rocky slopes on siliceous bedrock at 500 – 700 m a.s.l., where sub-populations with several dozens to a few hundred individuals in each have been observed. Occurrence of the species in the Rhodopes in northern Greece is likely.

Discussion: ―The geographical range of the apomictic hybrid taxa often extends outside that of the presumable parental species. This is also the case in Hieracium crinitopannosum , which, unlike the mesothermophilous H. petrovae , ‘left’ the deep, calcareous gorges of the Central Rhodopes and occurs in their northern foreland in the Vacha River valley, where it meets the thermophilous H. crinitum , i.e. its alleged second parental species.

Zahn (1938) placed the intermediate species of presumably hybrid origin between members of H. sect. Pannosa and H. sect. Italica into the H. heldreichii agg. Determining the sectional placement of intermediate Hieracium species (with parental species belonging to different sections) into one of the ‘ancestral’ sections, although arbitrary, is useful from the practical point of view. Otherwise, the number of sections in the genus would have to be increased at least threefold, with many of them monotypic. That is why we propose to include H. crinitopannosum into H. sect. Pannosa as more closely resembling the morphology of H. petrovae than that of H. crinitum .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Holotype of Hieracium crinitopannosum (SOM 169412)