Puccinellia poecilantha ( Koch 1848: 411 ) Grossheim (1949: 706)

Naqinezhad, Alireza & Hamedani, Hajar, 2017, Puccinellia poecilantha (Poaceae) in Iran, Phytotaxa 313 (2), pp. 185-194 : 187-190

Puccinellia poecilantha ( Koch 1848: 411) Grossheim (1949: 706) . Fig. 2 .

≡ Festuca poecilantha Koch ≡ Atropis poecilantha (Koch) Kreczetowicz (1934: 472) . Type: Caucasus, Apsheronskii peninsula, 100–200 m, K. Koch, Universität Göttingen Herbarium (GOET).

≡ Atropis chilochloa Kreczetowicz (1934: 764) ≡ Puccinellia chilochloa ( Kreczetowicz 1934: 764) Kreczetowicz ex Drobow (1941: 252) .

Type: Syr Darya district, Perovskii post, between Perovskii and Karauzyak, 3 km from Lake Bidai-Kul, I. Krashenimikov, Leningrad Herbarium ( LE).

Perennial, glaucus, more or less tufted. Stems geniculate at base, more or less thickened, 25–35 cm tall, plant with some short vegetative shoots. Leaf blades to 2.5 mm wide, folded or subinvolute, stiff, short. Ligules 1.5–2 mm long, sparsely spinulose on the back. Panicles 7–12 cm long, contracted, oblong, branches and inflorescence axes scabrous. Spikelets 6–8 mm long, 6–8(9)-flowered; glumes obtuse, ciliate on upper parts, lemmas 2.2–2.7 mm long, more or less keeled especially in the upper parts, abruptly truncate or broadly triangular with apical point, uneven margined, ciliate, violet with broad golden margins, lower half of the lemma hairy particularly on the obscure nerves. Callus densely or sparsely hairy. Palea setulose on the upper 2/3 of keel, a few long hairs (1–2) on lower part of keel. Anthers oblong, 1.7–2 mm long.

2 n =28 ( Ovchinnikova & Probatova 2015).

Specimens examined: — IRAN, Golestan province: Gorgan, Aq Qala, around Ulmagol wetland, 4 m b.s.l., 37˚25’23.0” N, 054˚38’45.9” E, 23 May 2014, Hamedani & Gazmeh 6501 ( HUMZ!) ; ibid., 30 May 2015, Hamedani & Gazmeh 7001 ( HUMZ!) ; Golestan province, Golestan National Park, Mirza-Baylu plain, north of Armadlu , margin of a saline spring in foothills north of Mirza-Baylu plains , 1290 m a.s.l., 37˚21’ N, 56˚12’ E, 24 May 1995, Akhani 10885 ( M!) .

Distribution and ecology:— Puccinellia poecilantha grows on wet soils of salt marshes at the Ulmagol wetland located in Turkmen-Sahra vast plains. Associated species include Aeluropus littoralis (L.) Trin., Spergularia diandra (Guss.) Boiss. , Limonium reniforme (Girard) Lincz. , Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. , Salicornia europaea L., Tamarix tetragyna Ehrenb. var. meyeri (Boiss.) Boiss. and Tamarix karakalensis Frey & Sint. ( Table 1). Individuals of Puccinellia are distributed sporadically within an area of approximately 600 m 2 along the wetland coast. Among the seven studied plots allocated in the habitat, only two plots possess P. poecilantha , each with three and seven accompanying species. Habitats with similar conditions have also been reported across the distributional range of the species (e.g. Tzvelev 1976) and for other members of the genus ( Akhani & Ghorbanli 1993, Akhani 2006). Considering average amounts of soil properties of seven plots, pH was determined to be 7.91 and EC (Electrical Conductivity) was 22.48 ms/cm and the texture was loamy.

Puccinellia poecilantha is distributed in Romania, Ukraine, SE Russia, W Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, southern parts of lower Volga, Caucasus (Ciscaucasia, Dagestan, and eastern Transcaucasia), Central Asia (Aral-Caspian, Turkmenistan), Qinghai and Xinjiang parts of China ( Merkodovich 1941, Tzvelev 1974, Negrean 2011, Laktionov et al. 2013). Turkmenistan is the closest locality (ca. 10 km) to our new collected site. The species has been reported from Afghanistan ( Liang et al. 2006, Euro+Med 2006, Breckle et al. 2013, eMonoct 2016) based on a specimen cited in the Flora Iranica ( Bor 1970) , but that specimen, which was collected by Rechinger (Herbaria G & M, hb. number 36827), is incorrectly identified.

Phenology: —Flowering and fruiting May–June.

Taxonomic remarks:— Puccinellia poecilantha has been considered as a member of section Parachloa ( Kreczetowicz 1934: 372) Bor (1970: 62) . However, after a taxonomic revision made by Tzvelev (1976), Ovchinnikova (1989, 2014) and Tzvelev & Probatova (2013), P. poecilantha was moved to the section Xeratropis ( Kreczetowicz 1934: 383) Bor (1970: 62) and subsection Festuciformes Ovchinnikova (1989: 1787) , with the type species P. gigantea . The section Xeratropis is characterized by having lemmas somewhat pilose in lower parts, and moderate to large anthers. We compared P. poecilantha with the morphologically closest species in this section known from Iran, P. bulbosa and P. gigantea ( Table 2). Like other members of the section, shape and sizes of lemma and glumes and their indumentums are among the most important characters for distinguishing between these species ( Tzvelev 1976, Hughes & Halliday 1980). Our specimens of P. poecilantha differ from P. bulbosa in the number of florets in each spikelet, morphology of palea, and lengths of lemmas and anthers. Our specimens of P. poecilantha differ from P. gigantea in the height of plant, lengths of spikelets, anthers and lemmas and the number of florets (4–7 in P. gigantea ) ( Table 2).

species names corresponds to the cover of the species based on the Braun-Blanquet cover scale; + (few individuals), 1 (<

5%), 2 (5.1–25%), 3 (25.1–50%), 4 (50.1–75%) and 5 (75.1–100%).

There are three specimens in the Bailey Hortorium Herbarium (BH) under the name of P. poecilantha determined by Robert J. Soreng (see Choo et al. 1994), and two of these come from Iran. They were grown from seed at Cornell University, Bailey Hortorium Greenhouse. In GRIN (https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/search.aspx) the seed accessions PI-384949 and PI-311722, from Iran and Turkey, respectively, were named as P. distans , and PI-384944, from Iran, was named P. gigantea . The seeds of the Iranian specimens were collected originally from Valadabad, 40 km south of Ghazvin, 1200 m (PI-384949) and Mooteh wildlife preserve, 25 km south of Delijan (PI-384944). To clarify the identity of the voucher specimens at BH, we examined close up photographs and detailed descriptions of different plant parts provided by the curators of the BH herbarium. The two Iranian specimens differ from P. poecilantha in shape of lemma apex (subacute to narrowly obtuse in PI-384944/PI-384949 vs. rounded acute-apiculate to truncate-apiculate in P. poecilantha ), anther length (0.8–1.2 mm in PI-384944/PI-384949 vs. 1.7–1.9 mm in P. poecilantha ), the number of spikelet florets (4–6 in PI-384944/PI-384949 vs. 6–9 in P. poecilantha ) and extent of lemma indumentum (few hairs in lower parts in PI-384944/PI-384949 vs. almost dense long hairs on the callus in P. poecilantha ). Moreover, the phylogenetic studies of Choo et al. (1994) (see phylogenetic tree of figure 7) and Bar et al. (2015), which included PI-384949 ( Iran) and PI-311722 ( Turkey) (see neighbor joining tree of figure 1) indicated that both Iranian and Turkish specimens belonged to the P. distans group. Owing to lacking salt and drought stresses in the greenhouse conditions, inflorescence characters may be different from the natural specimens (see Davis 1983, J. Davis, personal communication, 03 Feb. 2017). On the other hand, habit characteristics of plants (annual vs. perennial with bulbous base) are not clearly certain in the cultivated plants. Nevertheless, some constant and qualitative characters (like shape of lemma apex and presence of indumentum on lemma) in the BH sheets indicate that they can belong to any of the following taxa: P. bulbosa , P. dolicholepis and P. gigantea .

Identification error in the Flora Iranica :— Puccinellia poecilantha has been previously recorded in the Flora Iranica , covering an area including Iran, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Iraq and Azerbaijan based on one collection from eastern Afghanistan ( Bor 1970) ( Afghanistan: Pul-i Charkhi, 20 km E Kabol, 1800 m a s.l., Rechinger, hb. no. 36827 G! & M!). Detailed observation of specimens housed in Genève and Munich herbaria indicates they are P. gigantea , as the shape and length of lemmas, glume length and apices, and the shape of the inflorescence of the latter specimen differ from those in P. poecilantha . Accordingly, Puccinellia poecilantha was erroneously reported from Flora Iranica , based on a mistakenly identified collection. Therefore, our record of this species in NE of Iran is the first report of this species in Iran and in the broader Flora Iranica area.

Figures

FIGURE 2. Voucher specimen of Puccinellia poecilantha from Iran (Hamedani & Gazmeh 6501, HUMZ).