Silene microsperma Fenzl, Pug. Pl. Nov. Syr. 9. 1842.

Eggens, Frida, Jafari, Farzaneh, Thollesson, Mikael, Crameri, Simon, Zarre, Shahin & Oxelman, Bengt, 2020, Phylogeny and species delimitation in Silene sect. Arenosae (Caryophyllaceae): a new section, PhytoKeys 159, pp. 1-34 : 1

8. Silene microsperma Fenzl, Pug. Pl. Nov. Syr. 9. 1842.

Type.

See below subspecies.

Distribution.

Turkey, Syria, N Iraq, Cyprus, Palestine and Lebanon (Fig. 7 ).

Notes.

This species is the most variable in the section and is here divided into four subspecies. We have chosen not to treat these taxa as species because they are obviously closely related, as seen by low variation in the DNA sequences. The taxon " S. modesta " has sometimes been treated as a species (e.g. Zohary 1966, Mouterde 1966), but has also previously been treated as a variety of S. chaetodonta ( Post 1932). Here, we accept it as a subspecies of S. microsperma .

The S. microsperma accessions with S. exsudans and one accession of S. georgievskyi ID. 42 form a weakly supported clade in the species (Fig. 1 ) and rps16 (PP <0.75) trees. The RPB2 tree shows almost the same pattern, but S. chaetodonta ID 181 from Turkey is included in this clade (PP = 0.96 MPB = 83%, Fig. 5 ). The ITS phylogeny supports a close relationship between S. microsperma and S. exsudans (PP = 0.98 MPB = 86% MLB = 97%, Fig. 3 ). There is very little resolution within the S. microsperma clade.

Figures

Figure 1. Species tree from two STACEY runs and three unlinked regions (ITS, RPB 2, rps 16). Posterior probabilities> 0.75 are shown above branches. The number following the taxonomic name is the specimen ID (Suppl. material 1). Scale bar reflects the number of substitutions per site.

Figure 3. Phylogenetic tree resulting from Bayesian analysis of the ITS sequences including 76 taxa. The trees were summarized in a 50 % majority-rule consensus tree with the posterior probabilities (PP) indicated above branches. Bootstrap support values (> 75 %) based on MP and ML are noted below branches, respectively. The numbers following the taxonomic name indicate the specimen ID and Genbank numbers (Suppl. material 1), respectively.

Figure 5. Phylogenetic tree resulting from Bayesian analysis of the RPB 2 sequences including 76 taxa. The trees were summarized in a 50 % majority-rule consensus tree with the posterior probabilities (PP) indicated above branches. Bootstrap support values (> 75 %) based on MP and ML are noted below branches, respectively. The numbers following the taxonomic name indicate the specimen ID and Genbank numbers (Suppl. material 1), respectively.

Figure 7. Distribution map of S. sect. Arenosae. Each color code corresponds to one taxon: A S. arenosa B S. austroiranica C S. chaetodonta D S. exsudans E S. georgievskyi F S. leyseroides G S. linearis H S. microsperma subsp. cypria I S. microsperma subsp. maritima J S. microsperma subsp. microsperma K S. microsperma subsp. modesta L S. striata.