Over 30 Years of Misidentification: A New Nothospecies Lycoris × jinzheniae (Amaryllidaceae) in Eastern China, Based on Molecular, Morphological, and Karyotypic Evidence

Abstract

Based on the complete chloroplast genome, morphology, and karyotype evidence, we identified a new nothospecies, Lycoris × jinzheniae S.Y. Zhang, P.C. Zhang, and J.W. Shao, in eastern China. This new nothospecies has been inappropriately named Lycoris × albiflora in the previous literature for more than 30 years. However, the new nothospecies resulted from the hybridization of L. sprengeri and L. chinensis and had the following characteristics: the karyotype was 2n = 19 = 3V + 16, the leaves emerged in the spring, the ratio of filament to corolla length was approximately 1.2, tepals were slightly undulated and curved, and it was distributed throughout eastern China. These characteristics are quite different from those of L. × albiflora; thus, in this study, we named it and provided a detailed morphological description and diagnosis.

Lycoris insularis (Amaryllidaceae), a new species from eastern China revealed by morphological and molecular evidence

“…The known karyotypes of fertile diploid species in Lycoris can be roughly divided into two categories: 2n = 12‒16 (such as L. traubii , L. aurea , L. chinensis and L. longituba ) or 2n = 22 (such as L. sanguinea , L. radiata , L. wulingensis and L. sprengeri ) ( Kurita 1986 ; Hsu et al 1994 ; Zhang et al 2021 ; Zhang et al 2022 ). Other sterile hybrid species are always with odd or allotriploid karyotypes.…”

“… ML analysis was conducted using the GTR + G + I model with 1000 bootstrap replicates by IQtree v.1.6.8 ( Nguyen et al 2015 ). Bayesian analysis was constructed with eight independent chains for 1,000,000 generations and sampling every 1000 generations by MrBayes v.3.2.6 ( Ronquist et al 2012 ; Zhang et al 2022 ). All phylogenetic analyses were performed in Phylosuite ( Zhang et al 2020 ).…”

“…Lycoris Herb. (Amaryllidaceae) is a typical pan-East Asian genus, currently considered to have about 9 fertile diploid species, mainly distributed in China, Japan and South Korea (Hsu et al 1994;Ji and Meerow 2000;Kim 2004;Hori et al 2006;Lu et al 2020;Zhang et al 2021;Zhang et al 2022). China is the centre of the distribution diversity of this genus, with about eight of these fertile diploid species being endemic to this country (Hsu et al 1994;Lu et al 2020;Zhang et al 2021;Liu et al 2022).…”

“…China is the centre of the distribution diversity of this genus, with about eight of these fertile diploid species being endemic to this country (Hsu et al 1994;Lu et al 2020;Zhang et al 2021;Liu et al 2022). Due to the special living habit of flowers and leaves not being able to co-exist, as well as the rich and beautiful flower patterns and colours, Lycoris plants are considered to have great horticultural value and have received extensive attention (Hsu et al 1994;Zhang et al 2022).…”