Magnolia rubriflora (Y.W. Law & R.Z. Zhou ex F.G. Wang, Q.W. Zeng, R.Z. Zhou & F.W. Xing) C.B. Callaghan & S.K. Png comb. nov.

Basionym.

Michelia rubriflora Y.W. Law & R.Z. Zhou ex F.G. Wang et al., Pakistan J. Bot. 37(3): 559, fig. 1 (2005).

Chinese name.

红花含笑 meaning "red-flowered michelia"

Type.

CHINA. Hainan: Mount Jianfengling, 500-600 m, 31 October 2001, Zhou Ren-zhang 0265 (holotype: IBSC n.v.). Guangdong Province: Guangzhou, Magnolia Garden of Guangdong Forest Research Institute, 8 October 2001, Zhou Ren-zhang 0265b (paratypes: IBSC!; P online image!).

Digital image of paratype specimen below accessed 19 March 2019:

paratype [P: P00852399]: http://mediaphoto.mnhn.fr/media/1445779250360OrFutLDauT0PI7UU

Michelia mediocris Dandy. In: Xia et al. (2008: 85), p.p. quoad syn. Michelia rubriflora Y.W. Law & R.Z. Zhou.

Note.

While Michelia rubriflora is noted as a synonym of M. mediocris in Flora of China (Xia et al. 2008), the present authors agree with Wang and co-authors that Michelia rubriflora can be more than sufficiently differentiated from M. mediocris by the diagnostic features of these two species included in Table 1 of their paper (Wang et al. 2005), to substantiate its species status. A more comprehensive analysis of their differentiating features is compiled in Table 7 below. Michelia rubriflora also does not key out with the original validating description for M. subulifera (Dandy 1930:212), with which it shares synonymy under M. mediocris in Flora of China. Evidently an independent species, Michelia rubriflora is transferred in the present paper to the genus Magnolia by reason of the past reduction of the remaining genera of subfamily Magnolioideae to that genus.

The differentiating features of Michelia rubriflora are from F.G. Wang et al. (2005) and those of M. mediocris are from Dandy (1928a), supplemented by Chen and Nooteboom (1993: 1073)†, Deng and Yang (2015: 142)‡, Law et al. (1996: 180)§, Liu et al. (2004: 292)¶, Sam et al. (2004) #.