Cousinia amicorum Tscherneva et al. (2005: 411)

Mehregan, Iraj & Assadi, Mostafa, 2016, A synopsis of Cousinia sect. Pseudactinia (Cardueae, Asteraceae) including a new species from NE Iran, Phytotaxa 257 (3), pp. 271-279 : 275-276

3. Cousinia amicorum Tscherneva et al. (2005: 411)

Type:— IRAN. Northern Khorassan Province: NW Neyshabour, Heydari Mts., 2000–2200 m, Joharchi 34915 (holotype LE, isotypes FMUH!).

Life form perennial , monocarpic, 30–70 cm high, branched at the base. Stems woody and covered with the remnants of old and curved withered petioles at the base, ended up to current year stems. Current year stems glabrous, yellowishcream, branched at upper half, terminate to one or more capitulae. Basal leaves up to 12 cm long and 6 cm broad, elliptic to obovate-elliptic, subsessile, leathery, glabrous on both surfaces, lobed at the margin, distinctly nerved; stem leaves similar to basal ones, broadly oblanceolate, gradually diminish in size toward the capitulum; uppermost ones lanceolate. Synflorescence paniculate-corymbose. Capitulum solitary, ca. 50 mm in diameter (including bracts). Involucre 20–30 mm long, 10–35 mm broad, spherical, arachnoid on inner bracts only; involucral bracts ca. 60, spiny at apex, without lateral teeth; outer and middle bracts up to 25 mm long, lanceolate, distinctly elevated at middle nerve; inner bracts linear-oblanceolate. Flowers 40–70; corolla ca. 13 mm long, pale purple; tube ca. 4 mm long; limb ca. 9 mm; anther tube glabrous, violet. Achene ca. 5 mm long, obpyramidal-obovate, compressed, edentate at the apex.

Distribution: Endemic to NE Iran ( Fig. 3 ).

Taxonomic note: Though Tscherneva et al. (2005) mistakenly assumed the species to be a member of C. sect. Sciadocousinia Tscherneva (1962: 86), it shows the key character of the section Pseudactinia i.e. “perennial-caespitose” habit. Other members of C. sect. Sciadocousinia are biennial or perennial monocarpics ( Rechinger 1972) and none of them are “caespitose”. Our phylogenetic results demonstrated that C. amicorum shows the greatest affinity with other species of C. sect. Pseudactinia ( Figs. 1 and 2 ).

Further specimens examined: — IRAN. Northern Khorassan Province: Esfarayen, Shah-Jahan Mts. , near village of Noshirvan , 1400–2500 m, 8 June 1984, V. Mozaffarian 48572 ( TARI) ; SW of Bojnourd, Salouk Mt. , 2400 m, Zangouie & Hossein-Zadeh 24471 ( FUMH) .

Figures

FIGURE 1. A simplified phylogeny of Cousinia species based on the MP analysis of ITS data showing the placement of C. sect. Pseudactinia and C. sect. Sphaerocephalae (ITS data chiefly after Mehregan & Kadereit, 2009).

FIGURE 2. A strict consensus of the 10000 most parsimoniuos trees obtained from the MP analysis of ITS data showing the placement of C. sect. Pseudactinia. Total aligned characters: 479; number of constant characters: 329; number of parsimony informative characters: 84; tree length: 372; constancy index (CI): 0.462; retention index: 0.574. ITS data chiefly after Mehregan & Kadereit (2009). Numbers above branches show bootstrap supports.

FIGURE 3. Distribution of species belonging to C. sect. Pseudactinia (illustrated by I. Mehregan).