Gagea chomutovae (Pascher) Pascher (1907: 372)

Tekşen, Mehtap & Erkul, Seher Karaman, 2015, Gagea vanensis, a new species and G. chomutovae, a new record from Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey (Liliaceae), Phytotaxa 188 (5), pp. 251-260 : 256-258

Gagea chomutovae (Pascher) Pascher (1907: 372)

≡ Gagea olgae var. chomutovae Pascher (1905: 194)

= Gagea improvisa Grossheim (1935: 737)

Gagea chomutovae is recorded for the first time in Turkey in this study. It differs from other Turkish Gagea in its fistulose basal leaf, usually cymose inflorescence, nodding buds, tepals becoming purple towards apex and margin.

Distribution, Habitat, and Ecology: — G. chomutovae is distributed in Turkey, Transcaucasus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and now South Eastern Anatolia ( WCSP 2014). The flowering time is late April and May. This species grows on calcareous soils, steppes, and stony places at 1950– 2255 m altitude, sharing its habitat with Fritillaria crassifolia Boiss. & Huet subsp. kurdica (Boiss & Noë) Rix , Iris reticulata M.Bieb. var. reticulata , Iris sari Schott ex Baker , Allium scabriscapum Boiss. & Kotschy , Gagea bulbifera and G. reticulata .

Taxonomic relationships:—The anatomy of G. chomutovae was studied by Zarrei et al. (2010): the cross section of the pedicel is circular to circular–sinuate in outline; there is no clear boundary between the derm and the pith; the hypoderm is three to four layers thick; the basal leaf is fistulose without collenchyma and sclerenchyma; the palisade parenchyma consists of two or three layers; the pith disappears during the ontogeny of the basal leaf unlike the other members of sect. Stipitatae including G. vanensis . Zarrei & Zarre (2005) studied the pollen morphology of several members of section Stipitatae: the sculpture of the exine is reticulate in proximal face and perforate in distal face in G. chomutovae , but perforate in G. ova and G. stipitata aggregate; the muri of these species are compound and simplicolumellate as characteristics of sect. Stipitatae including G. vanensis . Unlike these species, the pollen of G. vanensis is conspicuous in its reticulate-cristate ornamentation.According to many researchers ( Pascher 1907, Grossheim 1935, Levichev 1990, Levichev 2006, Ali and Levichev 2007, Zarrei et al. 2007, 2010, 2011b, Peterson et al. 2011) and the present study, the diagnostic morphological and anatomical characters useful for the distinction among G. vanensis , G. ova , G. stipitata , G. absurda , G. kunawurensis , and G. chomutovae are given in Table 1.