Author:

Keywords:

acalymnate pollen tetrads, decussate pollen tetrads, ganguelia gen nov, gardenia, oxyanthus gossweileri, pollen morphology, pyrrhophytic geofrutex, rubiaceae, gardenieae, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Plant Sciences, Ganguelia gen nov, Gardenia, Oxyanthus gossweileri, Rubiaceae, Gardenieae, 0602 Ecology, 0607 Plant Biology, Plant Biology & Botany, 3108 Plant biology, 4208 Traditional, complementary and integrative medicine

Abstract:

Oxyanthus gossweileri from Angola has been described from a single specimen collected in 1906. A search in herbaria holding Angolan collections has revealed an additional flowering specimen, allowing a sound morphological and pollen morphological investigation. It is concluded that O. gossweileri must be kept in the Gardenieae - Gardeniinae but deserves generic segregation. A new genus Ganguelia is described and the necessary new combination made, G. gossweileri is a pyrrhophytic geofrutex with densely hairy, suborbicular leaf blades with subpalmate venation, Chorologically, Ganguelia is endemic in the western part of the Zambezian Region; in the Rubiaceae, the monospecific Calanda (Knoxieae) has a very similar narrow distribution. Ganguelia seems to exhibit two pollen morphological features which are not yet observed among the Gardenieae genera with tetrad pollen, namely, the +/- acalymmate condition of the tetrads and the colpoidorate grains, However, these latter occur together with the perorate ones characteristic for Gardenieae tetrads, A part of the tetrads are decussate; this arrangment, not yet reported from the Rubiaceae, was previously overlooked in several genera and is hence not a peculiarity of the new genus.