Six new species of Begonia from Guangxi, China

Yan Liu,Ai-Qun Hu,Chiung-Chih Chang,Ching-I Peng,Che-Wei Lin,Yoshiko Kono,Kuo-Fang Chung,Wei-Bin Xu,Yu-Hsin Tseng,Hsun-An Yang

doi:10.1186/s40529-020-00298-y

Abstract

BackgroundWith currently 1980 described species, the mega-diverse Begonia is now perhaps the 5th largest flowering plant genus, expanding rapidly from ca. 900 species in 1997 to its current size in merely two decades. In continuation of our studies of Asian Begonia, we report six additional new species from Guangxi, the region/province harboring the second richest Begonia flora of China.ResultsBased on morphological and molecular data, the new species B. aurora belongs to Begonia sect. Platycentrum, while the other five new species (viz. B. larvata, B. longiornithophylla, B. lui, B. scabrifolia, and B. zhuoyuniae) are members of Sect. Coelocentrum. Somatic chromosome numbers of B. longiornithophylla and B. zhuoyuniae at metaphase were counted as 2n = 30, consistent with previously reports for Sect. Coelocentrum.ConclusionsWith the addition of the six new species, the total number of Begonia species in Guangxi increases from 86 to 92. Detailed description, line drawings, and color plates are provided to aid in identification.

Highlights

With currently 1980 described species, the mega-diverse Begonia is perhaps the 5th largest flowering plant genus, expanding rapidly from ca. 900 species in 1997 to its current size in merely two decades
Known for its splendid limestone karst (Chung et al 2014; Tseng et al 2019), Guangxi harbors the second richest Begonia flora of China, surpassed only by Yunnan Province (Tian et al 2018). The addition of these six new species increases the total number of Begonia species in Guangxi from 86 (Dong and Liu 2019; Tong et al 2019) to 92, with more than 1/4 of the Begonia species named by Dr Peng and his collaboration with Guangxi Institute of Botany (Chung 2020)
DNA sequences of B. scabrifolia were generated by PCR and the remaining five new species were retrieved from full plastome sequences assembled for our ongoing phylogenomic projects of Begonia using the genome skimming approach (Twyford and Ness 2017)

Summary

Results

Based on morphological and molecular data, the new species B. aurora belongs to Begonia sect. Platycentrum, while the other five new species (viz. B_larvata, B. longiornithophylla, B. lui, B. scabrifolia, and B. zhuoyuniae) are members of Sect. Somatic chromosome numbers of B. longiornithophylla and B. zhuoyuniae at meta‐ phase were counted as 2n = 30, consistent with previously reports for Sect.

Conclusions

Background

Methods

Results and discussion