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| Leichhardtia weari Gâteblé, Meve & Liede, in Gâteblé, Meve & Liede-Schumann, 2023. |
Abstract
Just a few months after the publication of the Flore de la Nouvelle-Calédonie treatment for Asclepiadoideae, Periplocoideae and Secamonoideae, an unknown plant species obviously belonging to the genus Leichhardtia R.Br. was spotted while watching the local Wéari television programme on Caledonia channel and made available on YouTube. The focus of the TV programme was the remote and difficult to access Yandé island, in the extreme north of New Caledonia’s Grande Terre. Since few botanical investigations have been undertaken on this isolated island, the Wéari programme was an opportunity to get a better overview of its natural environment and plants. Here, we describe this Leichhardtia species and name it after this TV programme. Leichhardtia weari Gâteblé, Meve & Liede, sp. nov. is a narrowly endemic species with whitish flowers that is growing on serpentinite derived soils and known from less than ten individuals. Due to anthropogenic fire threat and its obvious rarity, we propose to consider it as Critically Endangered. In addition, a nomenclatural problem is fixed by proposing the new combination Leichhardtia guillauminiana (P.T.Li) Gâteblé, Meve & Liede, comb. nov; and a key for the now 20 species of Leichhardtia native to New Caledonia is presented.
Keywords: endangered species, Flora of New Caledonia, Leichhardtia micrantha nom. illeg., micro-endemism, new combination, new species, ultramafic soil, youtube, Eudicots
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| Leichhardtia weari Gâteblé, Meve & Liede. B. Degraded maquis vegetation in the Mariri creek area; C. A fertile branch with inflorescences; D. Detail of an inflorescence with flowers in lateral view; E. Flower in frontal view displaying the gynostegium. A, C showing Fleurot 838, B Fleurot & Dayé 902, and D–E Fleurot & Dayé 905. Photos by D. Fleurot. |
Leichhardtia weari Gâteblé, Meve & Liede, sp. nov.
Diagnosis:—Leichhardtia weari is most similar to L. neomicrostoma and L. mackeeorum (Meve et al. 2017: 60) Liede et al. in LiedeSchumann et al. (2020: 122) but differs from the former by leaves 1.5–5 mm long, peduncle nearly absent (to 0.3 mm), corolla 2–3 mm long, pollinia broadly ellipsoid and around 0.2 mm long (vs. leaves 6 to 8 cm long, peduncle 5–7 mm long, corolla 4–6 mm long, pollinia oblong and around 0.33 mm long in L. neomicrostoma). Leichhardtia weari differs from L. mackeeorum by sciadoidal inflorescences, corolla tube rounded in outline and longer than wide, corolla lobes widely pubescent to pilose (vs. bostrychoid inflorescences, corolla tube rounded pentagonal in outline and broader than long, corolla adaxially bearded below sinus of otherwise glabrous corolla lobes in L. mackeeorum).
Etymology:—The name refers to the Wéari programme from the Caledonia television channel and made available on YouTube. The Caledonia channel journalist Cédric Tyea named his programme Wéari because it is a word meaning protect, preserve or conserve in Paicî native language from the Paicî-Cèmuhi customary area. Paicî is the most spoken native language on mainland New Caledonia and its area of influence is between Monéo to Amoa on the east coast and Poya to Koné on the west coast (https://www.alk.nc/langues/paici). Yandé (or Yaadé) Island belongs to the Hoot ma Whaap customary area, to the Nénéma district and the native language spoken there is the Nêlêmwa (Bril 2002). The customary authorities of Yandé, Dominique Fleurot and Cédric Tyea welcome the proposed specific epithet. The epithet is here treated as a word in apposition and indeclinable (Turland et al. 2018, Art. 23.1, 23.2) as advocated for example for names derived from native languages in New Zealand (Webb et al. 1999, Heenan et al. 2021).
Gildas Gâteblé, Ulrich Meve, Sigrid Liede-Schumann. 2023. A New threatened New Caledonian Leichhardtia (Apocynaceae, Asclepiadoideae, Marsdenieae) Species discovered from A TV Programme and Social Media. Phytotaxa. 591(2); 91-100. DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.591.2.1
