Pseudomertensia

Pseudomertensia
Pseudomertensia echioides
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: unplaced
Family: Boraginaceae
Subfamily: Boraginoideae
Tribe: Cynoglosseae
Genus: Pseudomertensia
Riedl
Type species
Pseudomertensia elongata
(Decaisne) Riedl
Species

See text

Pseudomertensia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae. They are perennial herbs with blue or bluish purple flowers. Their natural range is from Iran to the Himalayas.[1] None have been found in China[2] or Russia.[3] P. echioides, and the type species for the genus, P. elongata,[4] are occasionally cultivated as ornamentals.[5]

Most sources list about 12 species,[6][7] but some include as many as 14.[8] Pseudomertensia was once thought to be closely related to Mertensia, but molecular phylogenetic studies have placed it close to Myosotis.

Species

Author citations are from Tropicos.[8]

  • Pseudomertensia chitralensis (Riedl)Riedl 1967
  • Pseudomertensia echioides (Bentham)Riedl 1967
  • Pseudomertensia efornicata (Rechinger f. & Riedl)Riedl 1967
  • Pseudomertensia elongata (Decaisne)Riedl 1967
  • Pseudomertensia flavescens Rafiq 1996
  • Pseudomertensia moltkioides (Royle ex Bentham)es:Syed Muhammad Anwar Kazmi 1970
  • Pseudomertensia parviflora (Decaisne)Riedl 1967
  • Pseudomertensia sericophylla (Riedl)Y.J.Yasin 1989
  • Pseudomertensia trollii (Melchior)R.R.Stewart & Kazmi 1970

History

In 1967, Harald Udo von Riedl erected the genus Pseudomertensia for eight species which, at that time, were recognized in Mertensia.[9] The genus is named for its apparent, but false, relationship with Mertensia.[10]

The species recognized by Riedl were P. chitralensis, P. echioides, P. efornicata, P. elongata, P. parviflora, P. edelbergii, P. primuloides, and P. lindelofioides.[11] The first five of these are still universally recognized. Some authors treat P. edelbergii as a variety of P. trollii, and P. primuloides as a variety of P. moltkioides.[6] Some authors believe that P. lindelofioides is misplaced in Pseudomertensia, and they place it in Lindelofia as Lindelofia olgea.[3] It is indigenous to Turkestan and Afghanistan. Lindelofia longiflora has been sampled in molecular phylogenetic studies, but L. olgea has not.

The distinctive Pakistani species, Pseudomertensia sericophylla is placed by some authors in a monospecific genus as Decalepidanthus sericophyllus.[6][12] Decalepidanthus is occasionally misspelled. It means "flower with ten scales".[13]

After Pseudomertensia was established in 1967, six more species were described in 1970 by es:Syed Muhammad Anwar Kazmi in the second of a series of seven articles revising the Boraginaceae of Pakistan.[14] A few more species were added later, the last of these being P. flavescens in 1996.[15]

The segregation of Pseudomertensia from Mertensia has been confirmed by cladistic analysis of DNA sequences. These place Pseudomertensia closest to Myosotis, at least among the genera that have been sampled so far.[16] The sampling of genera in taxonomic studies of Boraginaceae has not been sufficient to determine whether Pseudomertensia and Myosotis are sister groups.[17]

References

  1. ↑ David J. Mabberley. 2008. Mabberley's Plant-Book third edition (2008). Cambridge University Press: UK. ISBN 978-0-521-82071-4 (See External links below).
  2. ↑ Zhu Ge-Ling, Harald Udo von Riedl, and Rudolf V. Kamelin. 1995. Boraginaceae. pages 329-427. In: Wu Zhengyi, Peter H. Raven, and Hong Deyuan and Flora of China Editorial Committee (editors). 1994 onward. Flora of China vol. 16: Gentianaceae - Boraginaceae. Science Press: Beijing, China; and Missouri Botanical Garden Press: St. Louis, MO, USA. ISBN 978-0-915279-33-3 (vol. 16) ISBN 978-0-915279-34-0 (set). (See External links below).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sergei K. Czerepanov. 2007. Vascular Plants of Russia and Adjacent States. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England. ISBN 978-0-521-04483-7.
  4. ↑ Pseudomertensia In: Index Nominum Genericorum. In: Regnum Vegetabile (see External links below).
  5. ↑ Anthony Huxley, Mark Griffiths, and Margot Levy (1992). The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. The Macmillan Press,Limited: London. The Stockton Press: New York. ISBN 978-0-333-47494-5 (set).
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Pseudomertensia in Flora of Pakistan (See External links below).
  7. ↑ Pseudomertensia in The Plant List (See External links below).
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Pseudomertensia in Tropicos (See External links below).
  9. ↑ Pseudomertensia in International Plant Names Index. (see External links below).
  10. ↑ Umberto Quattrocchi. 2000. CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, volume III. CRC Press: Baton Rouge, New York, London, Washington DC. ISBN 978-0-8493-2673-8 (vol. III). (see External links below).
  11. ↑ Harald Udo von Riedl. 1967. Pseudomertensia. pages 58-63. In: "Boraginaceae". pages 1-281. In: Karl Heinz Rechinger (editor). Flora Iranica, monograph 48. Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt: Graz, Austria.
  12. ↑ Harald Udo von Riedl. 1963. "Decalepidanthus, eine neue Borraginaceen-Gattung aus NW-Pakistan". Oesterreichische Botanische Zeitschrift (Austrian Journal of Botany) 110(5):608-612. current title: Plant Systematics and Evolution. (See External links below).
  13. ↑ Umberto Quattrocchi. 2000. CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names volume II. CRC Press: Boca Raton; New York; Washington,DC;, USA. London, UK. ISBN 978-0-8493-2676-9 (vol. II). (see External links below).
  14. ↑ Syed Muhammad Anwar Kazmi. 1970. Pseudomertensia pages 367-383. In: Part 2 Of: Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 51(3):367-402. (See External links below).
  15. ↑ Rubina A. Rafiq. 1996. "Three New Species from Pallas Valley, District Kohistan, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan". Novon 6(3):295-297.
  16. ↑ Maximilian Weigend, Federico Luebert, Federico Selvi, Grischa Brokamp, and Hartmut H. Hilger. 2013. "Multiple origins for Hound's tongues (Cynoglossum L.) and Navel seeds (Omphalodes Mill.) – The phylogeny of the borage family (Boraginaceae s.str.)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 68(3):604-618. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.04.009. (see External links below).
  17. ↑ James I. Cohen. 2014. "A phylogenetic analysis of morphological and molecular characters of Boraginaceae: evolutionary relationships, taxonomy, and patterns of character evolution". Cladistics 30(2):139-169. doi:10.1111/cla.12036

External links