Two new species of Primulina (Gesneriaceae) from limestone karsts of China

PeerJ. 2018 Jun 11:6:e4946. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4946. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The limestone karst area of South China is a major biodiversity hotspot of global terrestrial biomes. During extensive field work on the Guangxi limestone formations, two unknown species of Gesneriaceae were collected. After conducting a comprehensive study of the literature and herbarium specimens, Primulina davidioides and P. hiemalis are recognized as two species new to science, and described and illustrated here. P. davidioides is morphologically close to P. lunglinensis based on the shape of the leaf and flower, but it can be easily distinguished by the shape of the bracts, corolla and stigma, indumentum of peduncles, pedicels and pistil and number of staminodes. P. hiemalis is closely relate to P. luzhaiensis in vegetative appearance, but differs in the shape of the calyx and stigma, number of bracts and staminodes, indumentum of the leaf blade and peduncle, and position of stamens in the corolla tube. Considering that not enough is known about their populations, it is proposed that their conservation statuses should currently be classed as data deficient (DD) according to the IUCN Red List Category and Criteria.

Keywords: Didymocarpinae; Karst region; Morphology; Primulina davidioides; Primulina hiemalis; Taxonomy.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Anhui University Doctor Startup Fund, Key University Science Research Project of Anhui Province (No. KJ2017A022), Fund of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Plant Conservation and Restoration Ecology in Karst Terrain (16-B-01-01), Plant germplasm resources projects of the germplasm bank of Wild species of Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (WGB-1411), the Chinese Academy of Sciences under the Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (2015GXNSFBB139004) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences under the STS initiative “Development of Chinese Union of Botanical Gardens” (KFJ-1W-NO1). The Gesneriads Society, The African Violet Society of America helped contact the botanical collections to facilitate our access to examined specimens, and hosted the first author when he did research in the US and Canada.