Thanks for your response which raises a number of really important issue as to the identification of plants in general as well as specifically in connection with this taxon. I shall respond and comment both about the general issues and about A.thangoensis but this must wait a bit as I am rather busy at present with another lecture to prepare for early next week and have an awful lotstill to complete to finalise the March 2017 Journal of the Himalayan Plant Association - of which I am both Editor and major contributor! Some of my comments will need to be worded with care.....
Best Wishes, Chris Chadwell 81 Parlaunt Road SLOUGH SL3 8BE UK www.shpa.org.uk From: D.S Rawat <drdsrawat.alpin...@gmail.com> To: efloraofindia <indiantreepix@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, 1 March 2017, 9:26 Subject: [efloraofindia:264744] Re: Arenaria thangoensis (Caryophyllaceae) rediscovered: June 2016_DSR_1/1 Flora of Bhutan havetaken a broad circumscription of A. littledaleigiving no consideration to merosity of flowers (sepals-5 in A.pharensis while sepals 4 in A.littledalei) considering it as avariation; thus merging these species into A.littledalei. It is very similar to the case of Cotoneaster genus where Fryer consider up to 400 species worldwidewhile broader circumscription gives 50-70 species in world. (Pl. See note inFlora of Nepal at- http://www.floraofnepal.org/page/onlineflora?wildcard=1051).All these species mentioned by you (A.pharensis(=Goringia pharensis), A.littledalei, and few others from China like A.reducta, A. saginoidesetc are closely related to each other and belong to subgenus Odontostemma section ‘Reductae’ (mentioned in some Chineseworks). These species are included and differentiated in Floraof China.Arenaria thangoensis is now known as Odontostemma thangoensis (pl. See http://www.ipni.org/ipni/idPlantNameSearch.do?id=77155319-1&output_format=lsid-metadata&show_history=true)after a recent splitting of Arenariagenus following the molecular studies. A.thangoensis is close to A.pharensis (a 5-sepal species) but differ from it by one line of hairs onstem (2 in A.pharensis), leavesbiconvex, succulent, obovate to oblanceolate (linear to linear lanceolate in A.pharensis), 2-5 stamens (2-3 in A.pharensis). However, these charactersare not very convincing and a revision of this Sino-Himalayan group of Arenaria is needed. It is worthmentioning here that no species of this group (baring A.thangoensis recorded by us) are known from Indian westernHimalaya.Finally, the typespecimens (Holo and iso) collected by Smith and Cave in 1909 are in CentralNational Herbarium, Howrah (CAL) and DD and were examined by me personally tocompare our specimen. Arenaria s.l. has beensplitted to may genera recently. We now have Arenaria s.str., Odontostemma, Shivparvatia(=Solitaria) and Eremogone. DSRawat Pantnagar On Sunday, June 5, 2016 at 9:59:15 PM UTC+5:30, D.S Rawat wrote: World environment day is appropriate timeto inform our eFI family that in last year’s botanical exploration we managedto rediscover a threatened endemic species from a remote Himalayan locale afternearly 106 years.Arenaria thangoensis W.W.Sm. (Caryophyllaceae)is a tiny plant and this species was described in 1911 from Tangu (Thangu) area of Sikkim in the EasternHimalaya. This species was never recollected after type collection either fromtype locality or anywhere in the Himalaya or Tibet and, therefore, known by thetype collection only (Srivastava et al. 2015). During afloristic exploration in the Kuari Pass alpine zone (3600-3700m above sea level,Chamoli district, Uttarakhand), which happens to be the type locality of‘Endangered and endemic’ Arenariacurvifolia Majumdar, my student Satish collected Arenaria thangoensis. This collection is a rediscovery of thisthreatened species after 106 years and demonstrates that it is an extant(living) species and thriving well in the area. Rediscovery from nearly 950 km (aerialdistance) away from its originally known population makes it more interesting.Imageof the species attached here is a first ever photo of live specimens of thisspecies in the world.Rediscoveringa species is a joy for me and sharing it with ardent nature lovers of eFIfraternity increases it manifolds. This rediscovery is yet not published, though incommunication with a journal. Dr D.S.RawatDepartment of Biological Sciences, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology Pantnagar-263 145 Uttarakhand, INDIAeflorapantnagar displaying wild flora of Pantnagar -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/indiantreepix/MmWgfIwUFeo/unsubscribe. To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to indiantreepix+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to indiantreepix@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to indiantreepix+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to indiantreepix@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.