S. austroiranica Rech.f., Aell. & Esfand., Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 75: 349. 1951.

Eggens, Frida, Jafari, Farzaneh, Thollesson, Mikael, Crameri, Simon, Zarre, Shahin & Oxelman, Bengt, 2020, Phylogeny and species delimitation in Silene sect. Arenosae (Caryophyllaceae): a new section, PhytoKeys 159, pp. 1-34 : 1

4. S. austroiranica Rech.f., Aell. & Esfand., Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 75: 349. 1951.

Type.

[Iran], Lar. [Hormozgan] Hadjiabad prope Tarum, ca. 900 m, 29 April 1948, K.H. Rechinger, P. Aellen & E. Esfandiari 3386 (holotype: W! [W19800014919]; isotypes: G! [G00006016, G00006017], S! [S-G-8718]).

Description.

15.0-50.0 cm tall, erect. Stem pubescent in lower part, pubescent in upper part; with 3-5 distinct internodes, the uppermost internode 1.0-10.0 cm long and obviously longer than the next upper internode. Basal leaves oblanceolate 10.0-30.0 × 1.0-6.0 mm, pubescent. Cauline leaves oblanceolate 5.0-40.0 × 2.0-6.0 mm, pubescent. Calyx 12.0-16.0 mm long, campanulate at anthesis and clavate in fruit, glabrous or pubescent; teeth unequal; shorter ones 2.0-3.0 mm, ovate, acuminate; longer ones 2.0-4.0 mm, lanceolate, acuminate; marginal hairs long (longer than 0.5 mm). Inflorescence non-divaricate, branch axile (much) less than 90°. Petal claws 7.0-10.0 mm long, glabrous; limbs 5.0-6.0 mm long, divided, upper-surface white or pink, lobes linear, divergent, petal limbs cleft to middle or more; coronal scales 1.3-2.0 mm long, elliptic or obovate, apex slightly dentate. Anthophore 6.5-9.0 mm long, densely tomentose. Anthers exserted; filaments 8.0-12.0 mm long, glabrous. Styles exserted. First pedicel 1.0-3.0 cm in flower, 2.0-5.0 cm in fruit, erect, glabrous, apex antrorse. Capsule 5.5-8.0 mm long, oblong or ellipsoid, fragile, translucent. Seeds 0.5-0.8 mm wide, 0.5-0.7 mm high, testa smooth.

Distribution.

Arabian Peninsula, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran (Fig. 7 ).

Notes.

This species has rather long internodes, two to ten times the length of the subtending leaves (rarely of the same length). In particular, the uppermost internode is long, sometimes as long as 10 cm. Plants from the Riyadh area tend to have shorter upper internodes. The internodes are often viscid. The long internodes together with the relatively long coronal scales are the best characters for recognizing this species.

The specimens from Iran tend to have broader leaves than the other specimens, in particular the ones from the Arabian Peninsula.

The clade with the two S. austroiranica accessions is strongly supported in the species (PP = 1.00, Fig. 1 ), ITS (PP = 1.00 MPB = 85% MLB = 98%, Fig. 3 ) and rps16 trees (PP = 1.00 MPB = 94% MLB = 99%, Fig. 4 ). The two accessions of S. austroiranica do not form a clade in RPB2 tree, probably due to difference in sequence length (one accession was 490 bp and another 140 bp: due to incomplete sequence read). In the RPB2 tree the S. austroiranica clade is nested within a clade including S. microsperma , S. exsudans , S. chaetodonta , S. striata Ehrenb. ex Rohrb. and S. georgievskyi (PP = 1.00 MPB = 93% MLB = 97%, Fig. 5 ), but in the ITS phylogeny S. austroiranica and S. linearis are successive sisters to this clade (PP = 0.99 MPB = 75% MLB = 78% and PP = 0.95 MPB = 85% MLB = 88%, Fig. 3 ).

Figures

Figure 1. Species tree from two STACEY runs and three unlinked regions (ITS, RPB 2, rps 16). Posterior probabilities> 0.75 are shown above branches. The number following the taxonomic name is the specimen ID (Suppl. material 1). Scale bar reflects the number of substitutions per site.

Figure 3. Phylogenetic tree resulting from Bayesian analysis of the ITS sequences including 76 taxa. The trees were summarized in a 50 % majority-rule consensus tree with the posterior probabilities (PP) indicated above branches. Bootstrap support values (> 75 %) based on MP and ML are noted below branches, respectively. The numbers following the taxonomic name indicate the specimen ID and Genbank numbers (Suppl. material 1), respectively.

Figure 4. Phylogenetic tree resulting from Bayesian analysis of the rps 16 sequences including 71 taxa. The trees were summarized in a 50 % majority-rule consensus tree with the posterior probabilities (PP) indicated above branches. Bootstrap support values (> 75 %) based on MP and ML are noted below branches, respectively. The numbers following the taxonomic name indicate the specimen ID and Genbank numbers (Suppl. material 1), respectively.

Figure 5. Phylogenetic tree resulting from Bayesian analysis of the RPB 2 sequences including 76 taxa. The trees were summarized in a 50 % majority-rule consensus tree with the posterior probabilities (PP) indicated above branches. Bootstrap support values (> 75 %) based on MP and ML are noted below branches, respectively. The numbers following the taxonomic name indicate the specimen ID and Genbank numbers (Suppl. material 1), respectively.

Figure 7. Distribution map of S. sect. Arenosae. Each color code corresponds to one taxon: A S. arenosa B S. austroiranica C S. chaetodonta D S. exsudans E S. georgievskyi F S. leyseroides G S. linearis H S. microsperma subsp. cypria I S. microsperma subsp. maritima J S. microsperma subsp. microsperma K S. microsperma subsp. modesta L S. striata.