No.11   LI-HUA YANG, ZU-LIN NING  &  MING KANG：

Primulina rubella sp. nov. (Gesneriaceae) from a limestone area in Guangdong, China

 Nordic Journal of Botany 35(4): 506–512.

ABSTRACT

A new species of Primulina (Gesneriaceae) from a limestone area in southern China, P. rubella L.H. Yang & M. Kang, is described and illustrated. The new species has purple-red flowers and is thus similar to P. lijiangensis, but differs by its petiole, leaf blade, cyme, filament, stigma and ovary. In adition, a molecular phylogenetic reconstruction indicated that P. rubella and P. lijiangensis belong to quite different clades. Instead, P. rubella appears to be closely related to the sympatric P. qingyuanensis, although these two species are obviously differentiated both in terms of flower color and other vegetative and floral characters. The conservation status of P. rubella is assessed as ‘ Critically Endangered ’ (CR) according to the IUCN red list categories and criteria(Cited from Yang et al., 2017).

Figure 1. Primulina rubella sp. nov. (A) habit, (B) flower in front view, (C) flower in side view, (D) opened corolla, showing stamens and staminodes, (E) staminode, (F) pistil, (G), (H) stigma, (I) fertile stamens and anther, (J) bract. Drawn by Yun-Xiao Liu based on cultivated individual collected from type locality(Cited from Yang et al., 2017).

Figure 2. Primulina rubella sp. nov. (A) habit, (B) cyme, (C) flower in side view, (D) flower in front view, (E) opened corolla, showing stamens and staminodes, (F) leaf, (G) pistil, (H) calyx lobes. Photo by Li-Hua Yang(Cited from Yang et al., 2017).

Figure 3. Primulina lijiangensis. (A) habit, (B) cyme, (C) flower in side view, (D) flower in front view, (E) leaf, (F) opened corolla, showing stamens and staminodes, (G) pistil and calyx lobes. Photo by Li-Hua Yang(Cited from Yang et al., 2017).

Figure 4. Distribution of Primulina rubella sp. nov. (triangle) and P. lijiangensis (circle) (Cited from Yang et al., 2017).

Figure 5. Majority rule consensus Bayesian tree based on combined sequence data from the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and three plastid markers (trnL-trnF, rpl32-trnL and atpB-rbcL). Numbers above branches are posterior probabilities in percent (Cited from Yang et al., 2017).