Subsericantes T.Boza & M.Kessler, 2022

Boza Espinoza, Tatiana Erika & Kessler, Michael, 2022, A monograph of the genus Polylepis (Rosaceae), PhytoKeys 203, pp. 1-274 : 1

Section Subsericantes T.Boza & M.Kessler sect. nov.

Diagnosis.

Trees; 1 lateral leaflet pair; lower leaflet surfaces densely villous or strigose; fruits with 3-4 irregular flattened ridges with a series of spines, densely pilose.

Type.

Polylepis subsericans J.F. Macbr.

Notes.

The sectional epithet Subsericantes is a plural adjective agreeing in gender with Polylepis . Section Polylepis Subsericantes contains species with pilose or strigose lower leaflet surfaces, one lateral leaflet pair and densely pilose fruits with 3-4 irregular flattened ridges bearing a series of spines. This peculiar combination of characters, which combines traits of sections Sericeae and Incanaee , was already noted by Simpson (1979). Schmidt-Lebuhn et al. (2006a) recovered the species P. subsericans as sister to those here placed in section Polylepis Incanaee . Given their distinctness, we place this species and two closely related ones in a separate section. All three species only occur in central Peru, where they occupy parapatric ranges. Table 7 provides an overview of the arrangement of the taxa by different authors.

Climatic niches in Polylepis sect. Subsericantes

Climatic niches among the species of this section do not differ with respect to the temperature under which they grow, but have clear differences with respect to mean annual rainfall: Polylepis subsericans grows under the most humid conditions, P. flavipila has an intermediate position and P. pilosissima grows under the most arid conditions (Fig. 62 ).

Figures

Figure 62. Box plots showing the climatic niches of the species of the subsections Australes and Subsericantes in relation to MAT (A) and MAP (B). See Fig. 12 for details on data presentation.