Genista unalii M. Dinc & Y. Bagci 2018, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Dinç, Muhittin
name: Bağci, Yavuz
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Plantae
Tracheophyta
Magnoliopsida
Fabales
Fabaceae
Genista
Genista unalii

description: Genista unalii M.Dinç & Y.Bağcı, sp. nov. (Figs. 2 a‒b, Fig. 3)   
 Type:— TURKEY. C5 Karaman: Ereğli, foot of Bolkar mountains, above Çatköy, steppe, 1880 m, 23 May 2007, M. Dinç 2979 & Y. Bağcı (holotype KNYA!; isotypes GAZI!, HUB! and personal herbarium-Yıldırımlı Herb!)   
 Description:— Low shrub (3‒)8(‒13) cm tall, with rather compact branching from strongly woody base. Herbaceous stems unbranched, virgate, ridged, furrowed, adpressed-sericeous, sometimes sterile, ending in leafy shoots. Leaves trifoliolate, subsessile; leaflets 2.8‒20 × 1.0‒ 2.5 mm, narrowly oblanceolate, acute, strongly inrolled, adpressed-sericeous on both surfaces, with clustered long hairs on the prominent pulvinule. Flowers absent or 1‒2 per stem, born singly in the axils of bracts. All bracts foliaceous, trifoliolate, similar to the stem leaves, with prominent pulvinules. Calyx 3‒5 mm long, with densely sericeous to villous indument. Corolla yellow; standard 9‒12 mm long, broadly obovate, acute, rounded or retuse at apex, densely sericeous on back; wings 7‒10 mm, oblong, glabrous; keel 8.0‒ 10.5 mm, sericeous on back. Legumes 8‒11 mm, ovoid-acuminate, 1-seeded, with sericeous hairs. Seeds 4‒5 × 2‒3 mm, lens shaped, black.   
 Eponymy:— The new species is named in honour of the Turkish botanist Dr Ayvaz Unal, from Necmettin Erbakan University.   
 Distribution and ecology: — Genista unalii is an endemic taxon of Bolkar mountains in Karaman province (Turkey), growing in the transition zone between the Mediterranean and Irano-Turanian phytogeographic regions. It is found occurring in a steppic habitat at elevations ranging between 1650 and 1900 m, together with Genista albida Willdenow (1802: 942), Potentilla bifurca Linnaeus (1753: 497), Jurinea macrocephala Candolle (1838: 674), Johrenia dichotoma Candolle (1829: 54) subsp. dichotoma, Pterocephalus pinardi Boissier (1844: 88), Linaria simplex Willd. ex Desfontaines (1804: 65), Allium borszczowii Regel (1875: 74), Polygala inexpectata Peşmen & Erik in Peşmen (1980: 435), Reseda armena Boissier (1843a: 5), and Hesperis kotschyi Boissier (1856: 21)   
 Conservation status: — The new species has only been collected from the type locality (Ereğli, Bolkar mountains, Karaman province), a site where a single population with approximately 1000 mature individuals is found to grow. According to the field observations during 5 years, the species has an about area of occupancy of 10 km 2. The population is very near to the villages and under the serious threat of overgrazing. Based to these facts, it should be considered as critically endangered (CR) B2ab (i,ii) (IUCN 2012).   
 Studied material:—C5 Karaman: Ereğli, foot of Bolkar mountains, above Çatköy, steppe, 1880 m elevation, 23 May 2007, M. Dinç 2979 & Y. Bağcı (KNYA). B5 Kırşehir: Kaman, steppe, 1000 m elevation, 26 July 2006, M. Dinç 2810 & A. Duran (KNYA). B5 Aksaray: Hamamboğazı, steppe, 1000 m elevation, 4 June 2006, M. Dinç 2641 (KNYA). A6 Sivas: between Sivas and Zara, steppe, 1350 m elevation, 26 July 2006, M. Dinç 2811 & A. Duran (KNYA). B2 Kütahya: Kütahya-Tavşanlı road, steppe, 1100 m elevation, 9 June 2006, M. Dinç 2646 (KNYA).   
 Taxonomic discusion:— According to Gibbs (1970), the keel/wing petal ratio is the most important alleged character distinguishing species of G. sect. Spartocarpus. In contrast, in the present study the wing petals were found to be generally shorter than the keels in some populations, but in other populations they were generally subequal to the keels, and there were no morphological discontinuities between the representative populations of Genista sessilifolia and those of G. aucheri (Fig. 1a).   
 The box-plots of the means obtained from stem length and flowers number on stem shows good discrimination between the Bolkar mountains population and the other studied populations of G. sect. Spartocarpus (Figs. 1‒2). Genista sessilifolia and G. aucheri are tall shrubs with tall stems easily perceptible in the field (Figs. 2c‒d). Among all studied populations of G. sect. Spartocarpus, Genista unalii is unique by its dwarf, pulvinate habit (Figs. 2a‒b, 3). Moreover, the stem is often sterile in Bolkar mountains population, but always carries flowers in the other populations of the section. There is a remarkably clear separation of the analysed populations with respect to the number of flowers on the stem (Figs. 1c, 2). Flowers are absent or 1‒2, born singly in Bolkar mountains population, but the inflorescence is a raceme or axillary cluster with 5 or more flowers in the second group including the populations of G. sessilifolia and G. aucheri.   
 The species of Genista sect. Spartocarpus are very similar in general appearance, but they differ by characters related to habit, inflorescence and the shape and size of calyx and corolla. Flowers are borne in racemes, axillary clusters or, less frequently, heads in this section (Gibbs 1966). Species of Genista sect. Spartocarpus in Turkey are also similar to each other in general appearance, and with respect to size and shape of calyx and corolla. However, dwarf growth form and 1‒2-solitary-flowered or sterile stems ending in leafy shoots are the most distinct macromorphological features separating G. unalii from the other two species. These diagnostic characters are constant in the only known population of G. unalii, which consists of about 1000 individuals. Furthermore, G. unalii always grows at higher elevations than its relatives of G. sect. Spartocarpus, an ecological divergence allowing easy identification and being directly related to the diagnostic differences defining the newly described species.
description: Published as part of Dinç, Muhittin & Bağci, Yavuz, 2018, A new species of Genista sect. Spartocarpus (Fabaceae) from Karaman (Turkey), pp. 49-54 in Phytotaxa 371 (1) on pages 50-52, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.371.1.6, http://zenodo.org/record/13728260