Abstract
Centaurea ziganensis Yüzb., M. Bona & İ. Genç, a new species is described and illustrated from Gümüşhane province, NE Turkey. The new species grows in rocky places on the south face of Zigana Mountains, and is closely related to C. drabifolioides, from which it differs mainly in stem, achene and phyllary appendage characters. Micromorphological structures of achenes and karyological features of C. ziganensis and C. drabifolioides were examined in this study.
Highlights
Centaurea L. s.l. is one of the largest and taxonomically most difficult genera of the Asteraceae (Dostál 1976)
Centaurea ziganensis is related to C. drabifolioides, from which it differs mainly in its 2–4 (–8) branched and non-winged stem, median phyllary appendages with 4–6 pairs of cilia; achenes 4.5–5 mm long, oblong, straw-colored, striate; pappus straw-colored
Even seed surface pattern and testa cell arrangement of C. drabifolioides are similar to Centaurea ziganensis, the cell centres raised above the boundaries and testa cells are not apparently imbricate (Fig. 3d–f)
Summary
Centaurea L. s.l. is one of the largest and taxonomically most difficult genera of the Asteraceae (Dostál 1976). The genus Centaurea was previously revised by Wagenitz (1975) for the Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands without considering the splitting mentioned above. Even excluding the species placed in these genera, Turkey is among the richest countries in Centaurea diversity (Wagenitz 1975, Davis et al 1988, Güner 2000). The number of known Centaurea species in Turkey is 162 [(excluding 56 species which are treated within Psephellus (33), Cyanus (16) and Rhaponticoides (7)]. In the Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands (Wagenitz 1975), 34 sections of Centaurea were presented. Investigations on living and herbarium specimens suggest that this new species is morphologically most similar to C. drabifolioides
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