Gelasia attariana E. Hatami, Mirtadz. & Ebrahimi, 2023

Ebrahimi, Atefeh, Hatami, Elham, Safavi, Seyed Reza & Mirtadzadini, Mansour, 2023, Gelasia attariana (Scorzonerinae, Cichorieae, Asteraceae), a new species from NW of Iran, inferred from morphological and molecular data, Phytotaxa 597 (2), pp. 165-174 : 167-170

Gelasia attariana E. Hatami, Mirtadz. & Ebrahimi , sp. nov.

( Figs. 1A, B, C, D, E & 2 ).

Type:— IRAN. Azerbaijan, southeast of Jolfa, Qeshlaq village , near the waterfall, 38°46.924′ N, 45°47.486′ E, 1940 m a.s.l., 8 Jul 2013, Mirtadzadini 2294 (holotype MIR!; isotypes MIR!, TUH!) .

Diagnosis:— Gelasia attariana is similar to G. cinerea and G. wendelboi in its caulescent perennial life form, lanceolate entire leaves with 3–7 parallel veins, tomentose indumentum of phyllaries and glabrous achenes without carpopodium. However, it differs from G. cinerea in its sparse (vs. tomentose) indumentum of stems and leaves, green (vs. greengrey) color of leaves, acuminate (vs. acute) leaf apex, narrowly (vs. broadly) campanulate shape of capitula and longer plant height and higher length/width ratio of leaves as compared to G. cinerea . Please see Table 1 for diagnostic morphological characters between G. attariana , G. cinerea and G. wendelboi .

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Description:—Caulescent perennial herb. Rootstock thick, cylindrical, vertical. Root collar without or with few remnants of leaf sheaths. Stems 45–55(–60) cm, numerous, branched from the base, erect or ascending, sparsely pubescent, sulcate, leafy up to inflorescence. Leaves entire, sparsely pubescent, linear to lanceolate, reduced toward stem apex, 10–14 times as long as broad, green or yellow-green, five-nerved, upper stem leaves (6–) 8–10 cm long, lower stem leaves (12–)14–18(–22) cm long. Capitula narrowly campanulate. Phyllaries lanceolate, acute, tomentose, with membranous margin, 14–16 mm long at flowering ( Fig. 1C ), 21–24 mm long at fruiting ( Fig. 1D ). Ligules yellow. Achenes 10–12 mm long, glabrous, non-stipitate, conspicuously ribbed, smooth along ribs, cream or pale brown. Pappus 14–15 mm long, pale yellow, bristles plumose below, scabrid above ( Fig. 1E ).

Phenology:—Flowering late June–early July, fruiting July.

Etymology:—The new species name is dedicated to the eminent Iranian botanist, Dr. Farideh Attar, who conducted valuable researches on Asteraceae in Iran.

Distribution and habitat:—Based on our findings, G. attariana was found only in its type locality, NW Iran ( Fig. 3 ). This new species is an Irano-Turanian element, growing on rocky slopes in the subalpine zone, at elevations of 1900–1980 m a.s.l. ( Figs. 1A, B ).

Phylogenetic and taxonomic remarks:—In this study, molecular phylogenetic analysis included representatives of all major lineages of subtribe Scorzonerinae as recognized in recent molecular phylogenetic studies ( Zaika et al. 2020, Hatami et al. 2022). In total, nrITS sequences of 32 species of Scorzonerinae were included in our analysis as ingroup, of which eight sequences were newly generated, one was from the new species and the others belonged to seven Gelasia species ( G. cinerea , G. latifolia , G. persica , G. ramosissima , G. subaphylla , G. wendelboi and G. xylobasis ) which are morphologically similar to the new species (Appendix 1, Fig. 4 ). The aligned DNA matrix comprised of 32 sequences and 749 characters including 55 coded indels, 274 parsimony informative sites and 142 parsimony uninformative sites. Maximum parsimony analysis resulted in 20 most parsimonious trees with a length of 1171, a consistency index of 0.548 and a retention index of 0.690. The majority-rule consensus tree from the Bayesian analysis along with the posterior probabilities (PP) as well as jack-knife support (JK) from MP analysis and bootstrap values (BS) from ML analysis are represented in Fig. 4 .

The results obtained from our molecular analysis ( Fig. 4 ) demonstrated that the new species ( Gelasia attariana SC 37) falls into the strongly supported clade containing members of Gelasia (1 PP, 100 JK, 100 BS). The tree topology is in agreement with our morphological investigations that confirmed the treatment of the new species as a member of Gelasia . Within the Gelasia clade, the new species, G. attariana , was highly supported as sister to the subclade comprising a polytomy of G. cinerea , G. wendelboi , G. persica ( Boissier & Buhse 1860: 139) Hatami et al. (2022: 20) and G. xylobasis ( Rechinger 1977: 66) Hatami et al. (2022: 20) (1 PP, 97 JK, 99 BS). Therefore, our molecular analysis demonstrated the close relationship of G. attariana with the latter four species and confirmed that G. attariana can be recognized as a species distinct from its close relatives.

Consistently, our morphological investigations revealed that G. attariana shares some morphological characters, such as lanceolate entire leaves with 3–7 parallel veins, tomentose indumentum of phyllaries and glabrous achenes without carpopodium, with G. cinerea , G. persica , G. wendelboi and G. xylobasis , members of the subclade that was resolved as sister to G. attariana in our molecular analysis. However, G. attariana is distinguishable from G. cinerea and G. wendelboi by plant height, stem and leaves indumentum type, leaves color, apex of leaves, length/width ratio of leaves, capitula shape and achene and pappus length ( Table 1 ).

In comparisons between G. attariana , G. persica and G. xylobasis , it was revealed that the differences in plant height, stem and leaves indumentum type, length/width ratio of leaves and length of achene and pappus are more obvious, since G. persica and G. xylobasis are characterized by a shorter plant height (8–15 cm), tomentose indumentum of stems and leaves, lower length/width ratio of leaves (2–5(–7) times as long as broad), and shorter length of achenes (6–9 cm) and pappus (8–12 cm).

Through our morphological examinations of herbarium specimens, we noticed that a population of G. latifolia ( Fischer & Meyer 1835: 30) Zaika et al. (2020: 75) (≡ Scorzonera latifolia Fischer & Meyer ) collected from NW of Iran ( Iran, Azerbaijan, east of Khoi, Seied Tadzadin mountain, 6 Jul 2013, Mirtadzadini 2293, MIR!) was morphologically similar to G. attariana in some vegetative characters including plant height (50–55 cm), shape and length of leaves (linear-lanceolate, 10–16 cm), length/width ratio of leaves (11–14 times as long as broad), and stem and leaves indumentum type (sparsely pubescent). Nevertheless, these two species can be easily distinguished from each other by the presence of densely lanate hairs on achenes of G. latifolia versus glabrous achenes in G. attariana . Besides the above-mentioned species, G. ketzkhovelii (Sosn. ex Grossheim 1934: 240) Zaika et al. (2020: 75) (≡ Scorzonera ketzkhovelii Sosn. ex Grossheim ) from the Caucasus and Turkey was recognized as morphologically similar to G. attariana by its caulescent perennial life form, entire leaves with 3–7 parallel veins and glabrous achenes without carpopodium. However, they are different from each other since G. ketzkhovelii is characterized by the velutinous indumentum of stems and leaves, ovate-lanceolate leaves, and glabrous phyllaries compared to the sparse indumentum of stems and leaves, linear-lanceolate leaves and tomentose indumentum of phyllaries in G. attariana .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Gelasia attariana sp. nov. A) Habitat of plants in type locality, B) Plant habit, C) Flowering capitula, D) Fruiting capitula, E) Achene. Photographs: A and B, M. Mirtadzadini; Scale bar = 1 cm.

FIGURE 2. Holotype of Gelasia attariana E. Hatami, Mirtadz & Ebrahimi (MIR 2294-a).

FIGURE 3. Geographic distribution of Gelasia attariana (■) in northwest of Iran.A) close up view of the type locality.

FIGURE 4. Bayesian 50 % majority-rule consensus tree inferred from the nuclear Internal Transcribed Spacer dataset. Values above nodes indicate posterior probability (bold) and jack-knife support (italic), and values below nodes indicate bootstrap support. Tip names correspond to species names and GenBank numbers or DNA numbers for newly generated sequences; see Appendix 1 for specimen details. The star corresponds to the monophyletic Gelasia lineage. Gelasia attariana was highlighted by red color.

Tables

Table 1. Comparison of diagnostic morphological characters between Gelasia attariana and its close relatives

Diagnostic characters	Gelasia attariana	Gelasia cinerea	Gelasia wendelboi
Plant height	45–55(–60) cm	30–40(–45) cm	30–40 cm
Stems and leaves indumentum Leaves color	Sparsely pubescent Green or yellow-green	Tomentose Green-grey	Velutinous Golden-grey or white-grey
Apex of leaves Length of basal leaves length/width ratio of leaves Capitula shape Achenes length/Pappus lenght	Acuminate 14–18(–22) cm 10–14 × as long as broad Narrowly-campanulate 10–12 mm/14–15 mm	Acute 7–9(–12) cm 6–9 × as long as broad Broadly-campanulate 10–12 mm/14–19 mm	Acute 6–9(–10) cm 3–5 × as long as broad Broadly-campanulate 12–14 mm/18–22 mm