Biodiversity of tropical grasslands and savannas (tropical grassy biomes, TGBs) remains poorly documented compared with tropical forests.

Portulaca badamica, and P. lakshminarasimhaniana, from Bagalkot district, (Karnataka State, India), are described as new species for Science. P. badamica is an annual, slender and sparsely branched herb usually with cleistogamous flowers, while P. lakshminarasimhaniana is woody, perennial, subshrub with pinkish red coloured flowers, capsules with elongated hemispherical operculum and seeds with peculiar metallic shine. P. badamica is morphologically similar to P. pilosa from which differs in having annual, slender, sparsely branched, erect habit, usually cleistogamous yellow flowers,3–4 fid style, 8–12 stamens, bluish seeds with stellulate flat cells without central elevations. P. lakshminarasimhaniana is similar to P. suffrutescens but differs from it by its non-tuberous root, stem scabrous with scaly bark, dark pink to red flowers, 8–15 stamens, strictly 4 fid style and oblong capsules.

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Badami is a place of historical importance, once ruled by Chalukyas, and contains many religious monuments. The study site is a World Heritage Site for ‘Evolution of Temple Architecture at, Aihole, Badami and Pattadakal’ by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). A detailed inventory of the angiosperms from the dry deciduous forests of Badami, Bagalkot District of Karnataka is presented which includes details on the distribution and occurrence of 558 species from 359 genera and 99 families. Fabaceae Lindl., Poaceae Berhart., Asteraceae Bercht. & J.Presl., Apocynaceae Juss., Cyperaceae Juss., Euphorbiaceae Juss. and Malvaceae Juss. are the dominant families. Fabaceae Lindl. contributes 15 % of total flora. In eudicots, Euphorbia L. (Rosids), Crotalaria L. (Rosids), Ipomoea L. (Asterids) and Alysicarpus Desv. (Rosids) are the dominant genera with 13, 9, 8 & 8 species respectively; while in monocots Cyperus L. (Commelinids), and Fimbristylis Vahl (Commelinids) each having 8 taxa and Eragrostis Nees. with 5 taxa are the dominant genera. The timing of flowering and fruiting, vegetation type and herbarium details are provided. These dry forests are a potential source of medicine, fruits, gum, fuel, food, fodder and oil yielding plants but are ignored by local people and are in decline due to high anthropogenic pressure, high grazing, high fuel wood exploration and tourism. Some of the plants are very rare, Barleria stocksii T.Anderson, Ceropegia spiralis Wight, Vahlia digyna (Retz.) Kuntze, Drimia raogibeikii (Hemadri) Hemadri, Iphigenia mysorensis Arekal & S.N.Ramaswamy, Uticularia caerulia L. and Drosera burmanni Vahl. The present article is an inventory of the flowering plants of the Badami Hills is based on a synthesis of literature review, herbarium visits and field collection undertaken during the last decade.

Crotalaria shrirangiana is described and illustrated as a new species in the present communication. The new species is found growing in northern Western Ghats ranges of Maharashtra. It is an erect, profusely branched under-shrub up to 1.5 m in height, with bright yellow flowers. It shows close affinities with Crotalaria juncea but is distinguished by details of its stem indumentum, shape and size of the leaves, inflorescence, bracts and bracteoles, shape and size of the flowers, standard petal, pod size and number of seeds per pod.

Alysicarpus bhuibavadensis is described here as a new species from Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra state, India. Alysicarpus bhuibavadensis is close to A. tetragonolobus and A. gracilis in its morphology but distinct by means of pubescent leaves, axillary lax racemes, included pods with thickened beak.

The genus Portulaca L. belongs to the monogeneric family Portulacaceae and consists of about 157 species worldwide. In India, it is represented by 11 taxa; among them, Portulaca badamica, Portulaca lakshminarasimhaniana, Portulaca oleracea var. linearifolia, and Portulaca laljii are endemic. So far, the phylogenetic positions of these species have not yet been analyzed. We have reconstructed the Bayesian and maximum likelihood phylogenies based on a combined chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequence dataset to reveal phylogenetic placements of Indian Portulaca. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that all the sampled Indian Portulaca species (except Portulaca wightiana) are placed in the AL clade, which contains most of the known species of the family Portulacaceae. We used reconstructed phylogeny to study the historical biogeography of Indian endemic species by employing S-DIVA analysis. S-DIVA analysis suggested P. lakshminarasimhaniana has origin in India, it may be the result of in situ speciation in India, and P. badamica was dispersed from Africa to India. We have also discussed the systematic placements of endemic species and their morphological relationships with closely allied species. In addition, this study also provides taxonomic treatment for endemic species.

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