Murdannia Assamica, a New Species of Commelinaceae From India

Abstract

Murdannia assamica Nampy & A.Ancy, a new species of Murdannia (Commelinaceae) from India, is described and illustrated. It is similar to Murdannia nudiflora but differs in the cincinnus, antherode, capsule and seed characters.

Taxonomic revision of Neotropical Murdannia Royle (Commelinaceae)

“…Nevertheless, both descriptions overlap with the description presented by Faden (2000) for Murdannia keisak , in North America. Ancy (2014), in her unpublished Ph.D. thesis, presents a thorough taxonomic account on Murdannia from India. Her description of Murdannia triquetra matches very closely the two specimens known for South America, in sepal, petal and fruit morphology.…”

“…The terminal thyrse consisting of well-spaced whorls of cincinni, present in Murdannia gardneri and Murdannia paraguayensis , is elsewhere present only in the rare Central African Murdannia allardii (De Wild.) Brenan, and in the Asian species Murdannia divergens (C.B.Clarke) G.Brückn, and Murdannia juncoides (Wight) R.S.Rao & Kammathy (Ancy 2014; Faden & Pellegrini pers. obs.).…”

“…ex C.B.Clarke) G.Brückn., and Murdannia versicolor (Dalzell) G.Brückn. ], and represented in Africa by Murdannia axillaris Brenan (Faden 2012; Ancy 2014). Nonetheless, some of them show characters not present in any of the Neotropical species, such as annual habit, biseriate seeds and yellow to orange flowers.…”

“…Nevertheless, Murdannia can be easily differentiated from Aneilema and Commelina by its flowers commonly enantiostylous, petals sessile and equal to subequal, three antesepalous stamens (one sometimes staminodial), three antepetalous staminodes, 3-lobed antherodes, capsules always equally 3-locular, and 3-valved (Brenan 1952, 1966; Faden 1998). The genus has a Pantropical and Warm Temperate distribution, being especially diverse in Asia, where most (more than 50%) of the accepted species and morphological diversity are known to occur (Nandikar 2013; Ancy 2014; Ancy and Nampy 2014; Nandikar and Gurav 2015). Most recent studies on Murdannia have focused on the Paleotropical species, especially the Asian (e.g.…”

“…Most recent studies on Murdannia have focused on the Paleotropical species, especially the Asian (e.g. Faden 2001; Nandikar 2013; Ancy 2014; Ancy and Nampy 2014; Nandikar and Gurav 2015) and the African (Faden 2012) members of the genus. Nevertheless, very little is known about the Neotropical species of the genus (Pellegrini et al 2013).…”