Cousinia subinflata Bornmüller (1913: 291)

Rastegar, Azad, Attar, Farideh & Mirtadzadini, Mansour, 2018, Novelties in Iranian Cousinia sect. Cynaroideae (Asteraceae, Cardueae): new taxa and taxonomic notes, Phytotaxa 343 (3), pp. 227-239 : 237

2. Cousinia subinflata Bornmüller (1913: 291) .

This species was considered by Mehregan & Kadereit (2008) as an intersectional hybrid between C. chlorosphaera Bornm. (1911: 253) of C. sect. Cynaroideae and C. orthoclada Hausskn. & Bornm. (1906: 159) of C. sect. Pugioniferae Bunge (1865: 7) without any hybridization studies, and just based on some notes under description of the species in Flora Iranica ( Rechinger 1972). Morphological characters such as habit, basal and stem leaves, leaf decurrency, involucre, and appendages of median phyllaries, which are most important characters in C. sect. Cynaroideae , are completely matching with C. sect. Cynaroideae in C. subinflata . For more detailed comparisons, differences of mentioned taxa are described and illustrated here ( Table 3; Fig. 8 ).

Figures

FIGURE 8. Comparisons between Cousinia chlorosphaera [B10 0093354] (a), C. subinflata [JE 00008465] (b), and C. orthoclada [B10 0093419] (c). Scale bars=10 mm.