Wednesday, July 30, 2014

[Botany • 2013] Thismia gongshanensis • A New Species of Thismia (Thismiaceae) from Yunnan, China


Thismia gongshanensis Hong-Qing Li & Yu-Ke Bi

Abstract
Thismia Griffith (1844: 221) usually grows among leaf litter in shady wet forests and comprises 47 small mycoheterotrophic species (Chiang & Hsieh 2011, Mancinelli et al. 2012). Individual plants live underground through most of the year, only emerging briefly to flower and fruit after periods of heavy rain (Ho et al. 2009). Although several species have been described in temperate regions, Thismia occurs mainly in tropical portions of America and Asia.

Keywords: Thismiaceae, new species, china

FIGURE 1. Morphology of Thismia gongshanensis.
 A. Habit. B. Magnified flower. C. Dissected flower, showing stamens, style and stigmas. D. Flower from holotype.


Distribution:—Known only from the type locality at Maku Village, Dulongjiang Town, Gongshan 
County, Yunnan Province, China. 
Ecology:—This species grows among leaf litter in shady wet bamboo forest. The dominant species is Chimonobambusa Makino (Poaceae). Other accompanying species include: members of genera Aeschynanthus Jack (Gesneriaceae), Agapetes D.Don ex G.Don (Ericaceae), Amomum Roxb (Zingiberaceae), Balanophora J.R.Forst. & G.Forst. (Balanophoraceae), Beccarinda Kuntze (Gesneriaceae), Curculigo Gaertn. (Hypoxidaceae), Monotropa L. (Ericaceae) and Myrmechis (Lindl.) Blume (Orchidaceae). The mitriform perianth suggests myophily (Stone 1980), and a small dipteran species was found visiting T. gongshanensis at the time of collection.

Etymology:— The name of the species was chosen for the place where it was collected. Maku village is in the Dulong River watershed of Gongshan County, northwestern Yunnan, China, neighboring Burma in the west. Its Chinese name should be spelled “gongshan shui yu bei


HONG-QING LI and YU-KE BI. 2013. A New Species of Thismia (Thismiaceae) from Yunnan, China. Phytotaxa. 105 (1): 25–28. 
A new species of Thismia (Thismiaceae) from Yunnan, China … pic.twitter.com/EcN8VMOKoe