Taxonomic studies of Araceae in Myanmar IV: A new species, a new record and a new synonym for the genus Amorphophallus

Abstract

Amorphophallus wasa Naive, K.Z.Hein & Hett., is described and illustrated as a species new to science from the Sagaing Region, Myanmar. It is morphologically similar to A. saraburiensis Gagnep., but can be easily distinguished by its unilocular ovaries and lack of staminodes between pistillate and staminate zones. A detailed description, colour plates, phenology, distribution map, provisional conservation status and a key to the Amorphophallus species from Myanmar are provided. In addition, A. elatus Hook.f. is reported as a newly recorded species for Myanmar, and the name A. corrugatus N.E.Br. is newly synonymized under A. kachinensis Engl. & Gehrm.

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“…The genus Amorphophallus Blume ex Decaisne (1834: 366) contains 239 currently accepted species (Scholten 2023), making it one of the most species-rich genera in Araceae (Boyce & Croat 2011). Although the genus was first erected by Blume in 1834 more than half of all the species were described within the last 50 years with species still being described annually (Naive et al 2022, Serebryanyi et al 2023. The greatest taxonomic diversity occurs in Southeast Asia with notable diversity also occurring in Central Africa.…”

Taxonomic studies of Araceae in Myanmar VI: Amorphophallus mirabilis – a new species and a new record for the genus Amorphophallus

“…With those discoveries, Myanmar now harbours a total of 17 Amorphophallus species. This paper is the sixth in a series aiming at revising and documenting the diversity of the Araceae family in Myanmar (Naive et al 2020, 2022, Hein and Naive 2021, Naive and Hein 2021, Hein et al 2022).…”

“…(Nguyen et al 2018) and A. opalinus Serebryanyi and Hett. (Serebryanyi et al 2023) from Vietnam, and A. sakonnakhonensis Chatan and Promprom (Promprom et al 2023) from Thailand, whilst in Myanmar the genus remained underexplored and poorly studied, with only a single species described over past decades (Naive et al 2022).…”

“…However, inventory‐based botanical field work has still been extremely limited up until the present (Kress et al 2003, Kang et al 2018, Traiperm et al 2019). Included is Amorphophallus Blume ex Decne, a genus represented by 15 species in Myanmar, five of which are known to be endemic (Naive et al 2022). Several new Amorphophallus species have been described recently from neighbouring countries, such as Amorphophallus bubenensis J.T.Yin and Hett.…”