Thursday, December 12, 2024

[Botany • 2022] Allium sulaimanicum (Amaryllidaceae) • A new Allium species and section from Pakistan

 

Allium sulaimanicum N. Khan, A. Sultan et N. Friesen, 

in N. Khan, Friesen, Sultan, Fritsch, T. Khan et Ishaq, 2022.

A new species, Allium sulaimanicum, is described from northern Balochistan and southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan based on morphological, molecular, and cytological studies. The new species is characterised by long runner-like cylindrical rhizomes of adult plants, cylindrical bulbs, linear leaves with minute soft hairs along veins, campanulate perigonium, and white to creamy white, ovate to elliptical, 4.5–5-mm-long acute tepals, with brownish to purplish nerves, stamens as long as to slightly longer than tepals, yellow to brick red anthers, hexagonal ovary, and white and papillate/warty along angles. The presence of long herbaceous rhizomes indicated serious isolation of the new species; hence, a new section Sulaimanicum is proposed to accommodate the new species. The new species is diploid with a chromosome number of 2n = 16. Detailed morphological description, illustrations, phylogenetic analyses based on sequences of plastid spacers (rpl32-trnL (UAG) and trnQ-rps16) and nuclear ITS, karyotype features, and a distribution map of the new species are provided.

Keywords: Sulaiman range, ITS, rpl32-trnL, phylogeny, chromosome

 Allium sulaimanicum.
(A, B) Inflorescence (C) Flower section with tepals and stamens (scale bar: c 1.5 mm) (D) seed (scale bar: c 1 mm)
 (Photos by Nazar Khan).


Allium sulaimanicum N. Khan, A. Sultan et N. Friesen sp. nov.  



Nazar Khan, Nikolai Friesen, Amir Sultan, Reinhard M. Fritsch, Tahir Khan and Kamran Ishaq. 2022. Allium sulaimanicum: A new Allium species and section from Pakistan. Front. Plant Sci. 13:1020440. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1020440