Saponaria stranjensis D. Jord.

Doumas, Panayiotis, Goula, Katerina & Constantinidis, Theophanis, 2022, Thirty-two new and noteworthy floristic records from north-eastern Greece, Biodiversity Data Journal 10, pp. 81817-81817 : 81817

Saponaria stranjensis D. Jord.

Saponaria stranjensis D. Jord. in God. Sofiisk. Ubiv. Fiz.-Mat. Fak. 30: 400 (1933)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence : recordedBy: P. Doumas; Taxon : scientificName: Saponaria stranjensis; family: Caryophyllaceae ; genus: Saponaria ; specificEpithet: stranjensis; taxonRank: species; Location : continent: Europe ; country: Greece; stateProvince: Nomos Evrou; verbatimLocality: W of Dadia Village, next to the road; verbatimElevation: 260 m; verbatimLatitude: 41°07′; verbatimLongitude: 26°07′; Identification: identifiedBy: P. Doumas & Th. Constantinidis; Event: eventDate: 4 July 2016; habitat: area surrounded by Pinus forest; Record Level: basisOfRecord: Photograph Type status: Other material. Occurrence : recordedBy: P. Doumas; Taxon : scientificName: Saponaria stranjensis; family: Caryophyllaceae ; genus: Saponaria ; specificEpithet: stranjensis; taxonRank: species; Location : continent: Europe ; country: Greece; stateProvince: Nomos Evrou ; verbatimLocality: N of Soufli Town, next to the bank of Kamilopotamos stream; verbatimElevation: 34 m; verbatimLatitude: 41°12′; verbatimLongitude: 26°17′; Identification: identifiedBy: P. Doumas & Th. Constantinidis; Event: eventDate: 17 August 2019; habitat: Paliurus spina-christi thickets surrounded by mixed Pinus / Quercus forest; Record Level: collectionID: s.n.; institutionCode: ATHU; basisOfRecord: Specimen

Taxon discussion

A new record for the Greek flora (Fig. 14 ). Saponaria stranjensis is distributed in Bulgaria and European Turkey ( Petrova and Vladimirov 2010). The two localities of Nomos Evrou extend the species’ known distribution to the south. Its closest taxonomic relative, S. intermedia Simmler, differs by usually having stems up to 50 cm (longer as a rule in S. stranjensis ) and calyx with abundant eglandular hairs, rarely with a few short, glandular hairs, opposite to the calyx with abundant long and short glandular hairs in S. stranjensis . Although stem length may be a variable character and related to environmental conditions, our two randomly collected Greek specimens measure ca. 52 and 56 cm, respectively. Still, some authors consider those two taxa at subspecific rank rather than independent species (e.g. Jalas and Suominen 1988, Chater 1993), thus disagreeing with Mayer (1976).

In Greece, the two species have a clearly different distribution range: S. intermedia extends at the northern parts of Pindos Mountain chain and again found around Mt. Vourinos, at the NW parts of Greece ( Phitos 1997), where it usually grows on serpentine. S. stranjensis occurs ca. 400 km to the east, near the small town of Soufli, close to the Greek-Turkish border. Τhe two species also present a different altitudinal range in Greece: S. intermedia grows at 850-1800 m a.s.l., whereas S. stranjensis has been found at 30-260 m a.s.l. In Bulgaria, the latter species has been recorded from 300 up to 500 m a.s.l. ( Peev et al. 2015). The two Greek localities were found ca. 1.5 and 7.5 km west of the Greek-Turkish border, respectively (Fig. 7 ).

Saponaria stranjensis has been assessed as Vulnerable in Bulgaria ( Petrova and Vladimirov 2009, Peev et al. 2015) and is being protected by the National Biodiversity Act. Extinction has been observed in at least one previously known population in that country ( Peev et al. 2015). In Greece, S. stranjensis is very local: its populations are geographically restricted and consist of a few dozens of mature plants only. We presume that the Greek populations are threatened, but a proper assessment according to the IUCN Categories and Criteria is still pending. The two Greek localities form a noteworthy extension of the nearest Bulgarian population: ca. 25 km to the SE.

Figures

Figure 7. Distribution map of Centaurea marmorea, Jacobaea othonnae subsp. anomala, Hesperis matronalis subsp. matronalis and Saponaria stranjensis in Greece.

Figure 14. Saponaria stranjensis from Nomos Evrou (photo: P. Doumas).