A new species ofScutellaria(Scutellarioideae, Lamiaceae) from Sichuan Province in southwest China

Abstract

Scutellaria wuana, a new species discovered from a xeric valley in Muli County of Sichuan Province in southwest China, is described and illustrated. Morphologically, the new species shares similarities with S. mairei, but can be readily distinguished by a suite of morphological characters including a white-pubescent erect stem, conspicuous leaf petioles, and a yellow corolla with a trapeziform lower-middle lip lobe. The habitat and distribution of S. wuana are also distinctive. The position of the new species within Scutellaria is examined in a phylogenetic context using the nuclear ribosomal internal and external transcribed spacers. Additionally, we examine leaf epidermal and pollen grain micromorphology of the new species and putative relatives.

Leveraging plastomes for comparative analysis and phylogenomic inference within Scutellarioideae (Lamiaceae)

“…Scutellaria are recovered in both subclades, thus the monophyly of subgenus Scutellaria and sect. Scutellaria is not supported by the plastome sequences in this study or nuclear ribosomal sequences in previous studies [18,43]. With only one species of sect.…”

“…A total of 11 species of Scutellaria were sampled from both subgenera sensu Paton [5]. The monophyly of Scutellaria is supported here as in other studies [1,9,18,43], but the infrageneric classification of Scutellaria as proposed by Paton [5] is not supported by the present study (Fig 8). As shown in Fig 8, in our sampling Scutellaria is comprised of two subclades: Subclade I included five taxa from subg.…”

“…Anaspis is a well-supported group, only four representatives of the section from Iran were included in their study. Subgenus Apeltanthus is well supported in all studies [18,43]. The two sections of subg.…”

“…S. angustifolia Pursh [39,40]), population genetics [21,41], or species identification [42]. To date, only three phylogenetic studies have focused on Scutellaria [18,41,43]. Using both nuclear and chloroplast (cp) DNA markers, Chiang et al [41] studied the relationships of Taiwanese Scutellaria and Safikhani et al [18] focused on Iranian taxa.…”

“…Using both nuclear and chloroplast (cp) DNA markers, Chiang et al [41] studied the relationships of Taiwanese Scutellaria and Safikhani et al [18] focused on Iranian taxa. Similarly, when describing S. wuana C. L. Xiang & F. Zhao, only 41 taxa were involved in the phylogenetic analyses [43]. In total, only five DNA markers were used in these studies (nrITS, matK, ndhF-rpl32, rpl32-trnL, and trnL-trnF) and none generated phylogenetic trees with high resolution, ostensibly due to a lack of variability within these DNA markers among the sampled species.…”