Aquilegia xinjiangensis Erst 2017, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Erst, Andrey S.
name: Wang, Wei
name: Yu, Sheng-Xiang
name: Xiang, Kunli
name: Wang, Jian
name: Shaulo, Dmitry N.
name: Smirnov, Sergey V.
name: Kushunina, Maria
name: Sukhorukov, Alexander P.
name: Nobis, Marcin
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Plantae
Tracheophyta
Magnoliopsida
Ranunculales
Ranunculaceae
Aquilegia
Aquilegia xinjiangensis

description: Aquilegia xinjiangensis Erst sp. nov.   
 Type:— CHINA. Xinjiang: [Altay Prefecture], Qinghe [Qinggil] County, upstream of Daqing River, 2100 m, subalpine meadows or wetland, 7 July 2002, B. Wang 02-536 (holotype, XJA-0003378!). Fig. 1.   
 Description:—Perennial herb with short vertical taproot bearing 1–3 annual flowering stems (Figs. 1; 2A). Stems 30–60 cm tall, glabrous or sparsely pubescent with simple hairs in the lower part, and with glandular hairs in the upper part. All leaves thin in texture, green adaxially, greyish abaxially. Basal leaves rosulate, one to several, 10–35 cm long, persistent, ternate or 2-ternate; petioles 7–25 cm long, covered with simple and glandular hairs; leaflets 3- lobate or 3-partite, obovate or rounded, glabrous above, scattered pilose beneath, teeth 5–10, acute at apex. Cauline leaves 3–14 cm long, with petiole 1–4 cm long, ternate or 2-ternate; terminal lobes obovate or rounded, with 3–4 acute teeth; their laminae abaxially with simple hairs along veins. Bracts 1–4 cm long, ternate, petiolate (petioles 0.5–2 cm long), indumentum similar to those of lower leaves; terminal lobes obovate to lanceolate, with 3–5 teeth. Inflorescence 1–3-flowered. Flowers 2-coloured, pendulous to suberect, 4–6 cm long, 5–7 cm in diameter, puberulent. Sepals perpendicular to floral axis, ovate, blue, 3–4 cm long, 1.4–2.5 cm wide, acuminate at apex (Fig. 2B). Petals 2-coloured (spurs blue, laminae white or yellowish: Fig. 3A), 3.5–6.5 cm long, parallel to floral axis or suberect, with oblong laminae 2–3.5 cm long, rounded at the apex, shorter than sepals and longer than spurs; spurs divergent, 2–2.5 cm long, basally not inflated, thinned towards the apex, slightly curved apically (Fig. 2C), with black clavate tip. Stamens not exserted (shorter than or equal to petals). Anthers blackish (Fig. 3A). Follicles 5 to 8, 1.3–3 cm long (including the styles that can be up to 1 cm long), with simple and glandular hairs, not divergent (Fig. 2D). Seeds 1.8–2.0 × 1.1–1.3 mm, with tuberculate surface (Fig. 4A).   
 Habitat: —Subalpine meadows and mountainous coniferous forests, 2000–2500 m a.s.l.   
 Phenology: —Flowering June–August; fruiting July–September.   
 Conservation status: —The appropriate data on abundance and/or distribution of the taxon are lacking. It can be included in the Not Evaluated (NE) category of IUCN Red List categories (IUCN 2016) as there is inadequate information to make a direct or indirect assessment of its risk of extinction based on its distribution and/or population status.   
 Additional specimen examined:— CHINA. Xinjiang: Altay Prefecture, Fuhai (Burultokay) County, Fuhai Forest Farm, mountainous coniferous forest, 4 August 1964, G.L. Zhu et al. 6059 (PE00105591!).   
 Notes: —From a morphological point of view, the new species seems to belong to Aquilegia sect. Glandulosae Vassiljeva (1996: 19). Aquilegia xinjiangensis is morphologically similar to A. daingolica from NW Mongolia in having 2-coloured petals and dark anthers. However, it differs by the thin spurs, which are slightly shorter than the laminae and slightly curved at the top (Fig. 2E). Aquilegia daingolica has basally inflated, almost straight spurs longer than or equal in length to the laminae (Fig. 2F). All representatives of this group (A. daingolica, A. xinjiangensis: Fig. 3A, A. jucunda: Fig. 2G; A. glandulosa s.str.: Figs. 2H, 3B) are distinguished by the tuberculate seed surface (Fig. 4A–C). Aquilegia ochotensis Voroshilov (1981: 104) and A. transsilvanica Schur (1852: 94) cannot be assigned to this group, as was proposed by Voroshilov (1981) and Vassiljeva (1996). Aquilegia ochotensis, a species occurring in Far Eastern Russia, differs from other species of this group by the striate seed surface (Fig. 4D) and abaxially pilose leaf blades. Aquilegia transsilvanica is nested within phylogenetic ‘Group VI’ that unites European species (Fior et al. 2013). Such placement is clearly supported by morphological data (Kobiv 2012), including the striate seed surface (Fig. 4E). The morphological differences between A. glandulosa, A. jucunda, A. daingolica, and A. xinjiangensis are summarized in Table 1.
description: Published as part of Erst, Andrey S., Wang, Wei, Yu, Sheng-Xiang, Xiang, Kunli, Wang, Jian, Shaulo, Dmitry N., Smirnov, Sergey V., Kushunina, Maria, Sukhorukov, Alexander P. & Nobis, Marcin, 2017, Two new species and four new records of Aquilegia (Ranunculaceae) from China, pp. 121-137 in Phytotaxa 316 (2) on pages 122-125, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.316.2.2, http://zenodo.org/record/13699958