Estuaries are coastal ecosystems which are commonly known to support unique flora and fauna. The Adyar estuary is a severely damaged ecosystem due to developmental activities in the urban city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Botanical explorations were conducted in and around Adyar estuary during 2008 to 2010 to document the diversity and distribution of angiosperms. A total of 252 species and 2 varieties of angiosperms belonging to 196 genera, distributed in 64 families from 27 orders and 10 clades/groups were recorded and are arranged according to Angiosperm Phylogeny Group III Classification. It is observed that the flora of Adyar estuary also harbours a high level of non-native species. Anthropogenic threats to the estuary and its flora are identified and conservation strategies are briefly discussed.
Orophea narasimhanii (Annonaceae), a new species collected from the inland evergreen forests of Rutland Island, south Andaman, is described and illustrated. This species is allied to Orophea monosperma (Kurz) Craib, but differs from it by larger petals, a larger number of stamens and acute anther connective. A detailed description and illustration is provided.
Habenaria osmastonii, a new species of terrestrial orchid is described from Rutland Island of the Andaman Islands, India. This species differs from H. richardiana by having radical leaves, fewer and smaller flowers, shallowly denticulate, falcate lip side lobes and a lip midlobe slightly longer than the side lobes. A detailed description, illustrations and photographs are provided.
Codonacanthus sanjappae Karthig., Sumathi, Jayanthi & D. Naras., a new species of the family Acanthaceae collected from the evergreen forests of Andaman Islands is described and illustrated. This is the first record of the genus Codonacanthus Nees on the Andaman and Nicobar islands. The new species is closely related to C. pauciflorus Nees but differs in glabrous branchlets, shorter inflorescence, glandular pubescent style and capsules. A detailed description and an illustration is provided.
The genus Ziziphus Miller (1754: 1547) is one of the economically important genera in the family Rhamnaceae distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions (Mabberley 2008). About 135 species are reported from the world, and most of the species are confined to Asia and America. A few of them extend to the Pacific Islands and Australia (Bhandari & Bhansali 2000; Ara et al. 2008). The genus is characterized by its 3 or 5-nerved leaves, often with stipular spines and drupaceous fruits with a solitary pyrene (Ara et al. 2008). Ziziphus macrophylla Ridley (1931: 494) was described by H.N. Ridley based on the collections by Haviland from Lundo area of Sarawak region, Borneo. He named the species as Z. macrophylla based its long leaves. Unfortunately, it is a later homonym of Ziziphus macrophylla Schimper (1874: 224), a fossil species described based on the leaf from Köflach, Styria, Austria. According to the article 53.1 (Turland et al. 2018), Z. macrophylla Ridley is illegitimate, and hence a new name is proposed here.
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