Camellia mingii, a new species of yellow camellias from Southeast Yunnan, China

Abstract

Camellia mingii S.X.Yang is described and illustrated as a new species from southeast Yunnan Province, China. It is morphologically closest to C. pubipetala, but can be easily distinguished by its spiral arrangement of bracteoles and sepals; its bracteoles and sepals lunate, reniform or broadly ovate, glabrous inside and densely puberulent outside; its petals orbicular to short elliptic, puberulent on both sides; and its inner filaments puberulen to ca. 2/3 from base. Molecular analyses based on GBSSI sequences also support C. mingii as a distinct species of yellow camellia. It is ‘Critically Endangered’ (CR) according to the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria.

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Camellia mingii (Theaceae), a critically endangered yellow camellia species endemic to China

“…Archecamellia (Figure 1). However, the phylogenetic position of C. mingii need further investigation because of current limited sampling and the conflict between our results and the results from a previous study based on nuclear GBSSI sequences (Liu et al 2019). The complete cp genome of C. mingii would be useful for the genetic diversity studies of this endangered yellow camellia species and facilitate the understanding of the conservation and restoration of C. mingii.…”

“…It grows on limestone in evergreen broad-leaved forests at elevation of 800-1300 m. Only three populations of C. mingii in Funing County of Yunnan were found till now, the category of Critically Endangered (CR) was recommended. Both morphological comparison and molecular analyses support C. mingii as a new member of yellow camellias (Liu et al 2019). A number of chloroplast genomes of Camellia have been published (Yang et al 2013;Huang et al 2014); however, only few of endangered camellias were reported (Wang et al 2017;Liu et al 2018;Xu et al 2018).…”

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Camellia rostrata S. X. Yang & S. F. Chai (Theaceae), a critically endangered yellow camellia from southwest China

“…Both C. debaoensis and C. mingii were consistently placed in C. sect. Stereocarpus (Hu et al., 2019 ; Liu et al., 2019 ). Camellia sect.…”

Transcriptome-based phylogeny and whole-genome duplication in Theaceae

“…Due to the excessive collections and habitat destruction, several species mainly from Camellia have been listed as (critically) endangered, such as C. fangchengensis S. Ye Liang & Y. C. Zhong, C. hekouensis C. J. Wang & G. S. Fan, C. piquetiana (Pierre) Sealy (IUCN, 2020). Meanwhile, many new species (Orel, 2006; Orel & Wilson, 2010b; Orel & Wilson, 2012; Orel et al , 2013; Lee & Yang, 2019; Liu et al , 2019), and subgeneric taxa (Orel & Wilson, 2010a; Orel et al , 2014) have been described and published for Camellia in the past ten years.…”