New generic and species records for the flora of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Recent field works in the central and southern regions of Saudi Arabia including agricultural centers have managed to collect four vascular plants new to terrestrial and wetland flora of the country. These new additions include one new genus Malvastrum A. Gray (M. coromandelianum) subsp. capitato-spicatum (O. Kuntze) S.R. Hill, Potamogeton perfoliatus L. (Potamogetonaceae), Euphorbia tirucalli L. (Euphorbiaceae) and Sesuvium portulacastrum (L.) L. (Aizoaceae). Detailed morphological description, distribution and habitat of each of these species are provided along with illustrations and photographs. The report of new additions to the flora of Saudi Arabia indicated that the country needs thorough botanical explorations.

Endemics and endangered species in the biodiversity hotspot of the Shada Mountains, Saudi Arabia

“…Despite the fact that Arabian Peninsula, within which Saudi Arabia is situated, has been subjected to botanical explorations since Forsskål (1775), a comprehensive flora list of Saudi Arabia was achieved much later with the efforts of Migahid (1978), Collenette (1999), Chaudhary (1999Chaudhary ( -2001, and Thomas et al (2014Thomas et al ( , 2015. A number of publications (Ghazanfar and Fisher, 1998;Hegazy et al, 1998;Chaudhary and Al-Jowaid, 1999;Hall et al, 2011;El-Sheikh et al, 2013;Alatar et al, 2015) provided a great deal of details on the composition and the density of plant species and also on the status of endemic and endangered plant species in Saudi Arabia.…”

Tropaeolaceae: A New Family Record for the Flora Of Saudi Arabia

“…It is exposed to moist air masses coming from the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea (Al-Ahmadi and Al-Ahmadi, 2014). This region is characterized by its high plant species diversity and many new taxa and records have been reported in this region (Al-Zahrani and El-Karemy, 2007;Fayed and Al-Zahrani, 2007;Thomas et al, 2014Thomas et al, , 2015Al-Robai et al, 2018;El-Shaboury et al, 2018;Remesh et al, 2019;Basahi and Masrahi, 2019;Alharbi and Al-Qthanin, 2020).…”

Phragmites australis (Poaceae): New addition to flora of southwestern Saudi Arabia

“…It includes about 2282 species (Thomas, 2011) and has early been studied by several workers (Migahid, 1989, Migahid, 1990, Mandaville, 1990, Collenette, 1999, Chaudhary, 1999, Chaudhary, 2000, Chaudhary, 2001). Recent explorations by subsequent workers brought several additions to the flora of Saudi Arabia (Alfarhan et al, 1997, Al-Turki, 2003, Fayed and Al-Zahrani, 2007, Masrahi et al, 2010, Masrahi et al, 2012a, Masrahi et al, 2012b, Thomas et al, 2014, Masrahi, 2015). These recent explorations have repeatedly indicated that the flora of most of the regions in Saudi Arabia is still under explored.…”