Aspidistra paucitepala (Asparagaceae), a new species with occurrence of the lowest tepal number in flowers of Asparagales

Abstract

The genus Aspidistra (Asparagaceae) shows strong variation of flower groundplan. We add further evidence of this variation describing a new species, Aspidistra paucitepala from southern Vietnam that has flowers with 2-4 tepals, 2-4 stamens and a gynoecium with unilocular ovary. Bisexual flowers with three tepals and three stamens are extremely rare among monocots with biotic pollination. Compared with typical trimerous pentacyclic monocot flowers, they can be either interpreted as trimerous and tricyclic or as 1.5-merous (at least in perianth and androecium) and pentacyclic. Both interpretations imply floral features unusual for ‘higher’ Asparagales. Aspidistra paucitepala resembles recently described A. brachystyla from northern Vietnam in narrow funnel-shaped to nearly tubular perianth with very small lobes and short cylindrical pistil with stigma located below the level of anthers. As species of the taxonomically diverse genus Aspidistra are frequently observed in the field without reproductive structures and cannot be properly identified, a need for DNA barcoding approach is obvious. We present preliminary data showing that plastid psbA-trnH and nuclear 5S-NTS regions could be useful for DNA barcoding of Aspidistra.

Aspidistra laotica, A. multiflora, A. oviflora and A. semiaperta spp. nov. (Asparagaceae, Convallariaceae s.s.) from eastern Indochina

“…& Tillich, see Tillich and Averyanov ), the perigone opening may be reduced to a pore of 1.5 mm (e.g. A. locii Arnautov & Bogner, see Bogner and Arnautov ), the number of perigone lobes varies between 3 ( A. paucitepala Vislobokov et al ) and 14 ( A. longiloba G. Z. Li ), the perigone colour shows all shades between white, yellow, blue, purple, to almost black. Most species have a creeping rhizome, but some possess an erect or ascending stem up 1 m tall (e.g.…”

Pollination of Vietnamese Aspidistra xuansonensis (Asparagaceae) by female Cecidomyiidi flies: Larvae of pollinator feed on fertile pollen in anthers of anthetic bisexual flowers

“…Aspidistra is a genus of rhizomatous, herbaceous, evergreen plants with an enormous diversity of floral structure from Southeast Asian tropical forests (Li et al, 2000; Liang and Tamura, 2000; Bogner and Arnautov, 2004; Tillich, 2005, 2014; Kocyan and Renner, 2007; Averyanov and Tillich, in press; Vislobokov et al, 2014a). In terms of floral organization (groundplan: Endress, 1994), the diversity found in Aspidistra is remarkable in the species‐rich order Asparagales (Kocyan, 2007; Remizowa et al, 2010; Endress, 2014; Vislobokov et al, 2014a). For example, tepal number varies from two (Vislobokov et al, 2014a) to 12 (Tillich et al, 2007), which are the lowest and the second‐highest (after Neoastelia , Asteliaceae: Takhtajan, 2009) figures for Asparagales.…”

Was the ancestral angiosperm flower whorled throughout?

“…Why did the data set of Sauquet et al (2017), which contains no actual example of an extant taxon showing both a spiral gynoecium and a whorled androecium, lead the authors to infer such a combination as being the most plausible for not only the ancestral flower but also flowers reconstructed for two other key nodes of the FIGURE 3. The concept of integer and non-integer merism (Vislobokov et al, 2014) and contrasting morphological interpretations for perianth in core eudicots (Pentapetalae). Diagrams of 4-whorled dimerous (A) and trimerous (B) perianths.…”