Abstract
Carpinus gigabracteatus Z. Qiang Lu, a new hornbeam species from southeast Yunnan of China, is described and illustrated in this study. It possesses extremely large bracts and is closely related to C. tsaiana Hu and C. tschonoskii Maxim., based on the characters of large bract size and bracts without lobes at the base of inner margins. Furthermore, morphological comparison suggested it was distinctly different from C. tschonoskii by a series of characters from leaf, infructescence, bract and nutlet and from C. tsaiana by its leaf length to width ratio (1.4–2.0 vs. 2.0–2.4), lateral veins significantly impressed adaxially, number of lateral veins on each side of midvein (9–14 vs. 14–17), bract length (3.9–4.8 vs. 2.5–3.2 cm) and bract length to width ratio (2.3–3.1 vs. 1.5–2.1). Therefore, this hornbeam, based on only one population from southeast Yunnan, is here erected as a new species, named as C. gigabracteatus.
Highlights
The hornbeam genus Carpinus L. is the largest genus in the subfamily Coryloideae of Betulaceae (Holstein and Weigend 2017; Li et al 2018)
Phenotypic differentiation of bract length and width for hornbeams in China showed it was closely related to C. langaoensis, C. tsaiana and C. tschonoskii (Figure 3)
Morphological comparison with C. tsaiana and C. tschonoskii showed the Yunnan population distinctly differed from C. tschonoskii by leaf length to width ratio (1.4–2.0 vs. 2.0–2.3), lateral veins significantly impressed adaxially, infructescence size (8.0–12.0 × 5.0–5.5 cm vs. 6.0–10.0 × 3.0–4.0 cm), bract width (1.4–1.8 vs. 0.6–1.2 cm), nutlet shape, nutlet size (5.3–7.0 × 4.0–5.5 mm vs. 4.0–5.0 × 3.0–4.0 mm) and densely pubescent or villous and resinous glandular on nutlet (Table 2) and from C. tsaiana by leaf length to width ratio (1.4–2.0 vs. 2.0–2.4), lateral veins significantly impressed adaxially, number of lateral veins on each side of midvein (9–14 vs. 14–17), bract length (3.9–4.8 vs. 2.5–3.2 cm) and bract length to width ratio (2.3–3.1 vs. 1.5–2.1)
Summary
The hornbeam genus Carpinus L. is the largest genus in the subfamily Coryloideae of Betulaceae (Holstein and Weigend 2017; Li et al 2018). The present author found a hornbeam population during field surveys in southeast Yunnan with bracts without lobes at the base of inner margins, but with large bracts (3.9–4.8 × 1.4–2.0 cm) and these could not be ascribed to any described species. Those hornbeams distributed in other regions, including Carpinus betulus L., C. caroliniana Walter, C. faginea Lindl., C. laxiflora (Siebold & Zucc.) Blume, C. orientalis Mill. In order to test this hypothesis, the present author carried out morphological comparisons with representatives of all hornbeams in China
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