A new species of Bredia (Sonerileae, Melastomataceae) from Sichuan, China

Abstract

<jats:p><jats:italic>Bredia hispida</jats:italic> (Sonerileae, Melastomataceae), a species occurring in southeastern Sichuan, China, is newly described based on morphological and molecular data. The generic placement of <jats:italic>B. hispida</jats:italic> is well supported by phylogenetic analysis and morphological characters, including basally cordate, hairy leaf blade, cymose inflorescence, basally gibbous anthers and enlarged ovary crown enclosing an inverted frustum-shaped depression. Both molecular and morphological divergence showed that <jats:italic>B. hispida</jats:italic> is well separated from its close relatives, justifying its recognition as a distinct species. The new species resembles <jats:italic>B. repens</jats:italic>, <jats:italic>B. changii</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>B. guidongensis</jats:italic> in the prostrate habit and isomorphic stamens but differs markedly in the unequal opposed leaves, the 2–4 mm long, stout bristles on the adaxial surface of leaf blade and acuminate leaf apex. <jats:italic>Bredia hispida</jats:italic> co-occurs with <jats:italic>B. esquirolii</jats:italic> in the wild. No morphologically putative hybrids between them were observed despite their overlap in flowering season. The isolating mechanism remains unclear, pending further investigation.</jats:p>

Three new species of Bredia (Sonerileae, Melastomataceae) from the Sino-Vietnamese border area

“…1D). Close relationships among the karst species were consistently recovered in previous phylogenetic studies based on nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) and plastome sequences (Zhou et al 2019a, b, c;Dai et al 2020). From 2019 to 2021, multiple field expeditions were made to karst areas in southern Guangxi, southeastern Yunnan, and northern Vietnam.…”

“…Bredia Blume (Melastomataceae) as currently circumscribed contains 24 species distributed from central and southern mainland China, Taiwan, northern Vietnam, to the Ryukyu Islands and Yakushima, Japan (Zhou et al 2019a;Wen et al 2019;Dai et al 2020;He et al 2020) These species share obvious resemblance in their isomorphic stamens and undulate petal margin ciliate with glandular hairs and thus are easily distinguished from the remaining species of the genus (Fig. 1).…”