Trollius austrosibiricus (Ranunculaceae), a new species from South Siberia

Andrey Erst,Alexander Luferov,Kunli Xiang,Dmitry Shaulo,Alexander Kuznetsov,Wei Wang,Victoria Troshkina

doi:10.3897/phytokeys.115.30863

Abstract

Trolliusaustrosibiricus Erst & Luferov, sp. nov., a new species from Russian South Siberia is described and illustrated. This new species is endemic to Western and Central Siberia. Morphologically, it is close to the East Asian species T.chinensis and T.macropetalus. However, it differs from the aforementioned species due to the morphology of the rhizomes, aerial shoots, sepals and petals. This species is also distinguished from T.asiaticus, which is widespread in Russia (Western and Eastern Siberia), Mongolia, China, north-eastern Kazakhstan and in the northeast of the European part of Russia, in having a smaller number of sepals, longer persistent styles and petals longer than sepals. In addition, an identification key for all Russian species is given and all species have been discussed.

Highlights

Trollius L. (Ranunculaceae) is distributed in temperate to arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and has two centres of diversity in SW China and the area ranging from Siberia, the Pamirs and Kashmir (Doroczewska 1974)
The “Flora of the USSR” includes 11 species of Trollius, one of which is not found in Russia: T. dschungaricus Regel is confined to the east of Central Asia and China (Schipczinsky 1937)
The greatest species diversity is observed in Siberia (12 species: our data); 11 species of Trollius (Friesen 2003) were previously indicated for this region, of which we recognise 9 and T. sayanensis (Malyschev) Sipl. and T. vicarius Sipl. are synonyms to T. asiaticus L and T. uniflorus Sipliv

Summary

Introduction

Trollius L. (Ranunculaceae) is distributed in temperate to arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and has two centres of diversity in SW China and the area ranging from Siberia, the Pamirs and Kashmir (Doroczewska 1974). The genus is characterised by conspicuous orange- or yellow-coloured flowers, coloured petals, subscapose habit and ternate or deeply 3-lobed leaves (Kadota 1987). Trollius is distinguished by an unusual floral structure with petals divided into blade, pit (nectarostigma) and claw (Wang et al 2010). Are characterised by linear, flat, thin petals, which are longer than the sepals or nearly equal to them. All Siberian species are characterised by petals shorter or equal to sepals. When carrying out a revision of the genus for Russia, we focused on specimens whose petals are much longer than the sepals.

Methods

Discussion