Festuca albomontana (Poaceae), a new chasmophytic fescue from the Western Taurus Mountains (Antalya, Turkey)

Abstract

A new species of Festuca from the Western Taurus Mountains (Antalya, Turkey) is described here and named F. albomontana. The new species can clearly be distinguished from the other species included in the F. alpina group by its leaf anatomical features. It has a geographically isolated position in the Western Tauruses whereas a closely related species, F. sommieri, is very local in the Black Sea Region of Turkey. It is suggested that it should be in the “critically endangered” threat category according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria. Observations on the ecology of the population are noted.

Taxonomic importance of leaf anatomical characters for the genus Alopecurus L. (Poaceae)

“…Therefore, Ellis (1976) indicated that anatomical data are regarded as being of undoubted importance in the jigsaw of complete systematic evidence. Leaf anatomical characters in cross-section have been the main supplementary tools to add to the morphological features for characterizing some genera of difficult taxonomy within the grass family (e.g., Ellis 1976, 1986, López and Devesa 1991, Martínez-Sagarra et al 2017, Aykurt et al 2022) such as Festuca L. (e.g., Martínez-Sagarra et al 2017).…”