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Helichrysum nicolai (Compositae, Gnaphalieae), Systematics of a New Dwarf Local Endemic of the Cape Verde Islands, W Africa

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Abstract

Helichrysum nicolai from the Cape Verdean island of São Nicolau is described as a species new to science and illustrated. The systematic position in Helichrysum of this acaulescent dwarf rosette shrub with heterogamous capitula, in which the female flowers outnumber the hermaphrodite ones, is established using an ITS phylogeny based on maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference analyses. The new species is most closely related to the Canary Island endemics H. alucense and H. monogynum. The closest relative to these three species are not the other members of the genus on the mid-Atlantic archipelagos but H. somalense from the Horn of Africa region and the southern Arabian Peninsula and the widespread tropical African-S Arabian-SE Iranian H. glumaceum, to which the SE Iranian H. makranicum is found to be conspecific. The phytogeographical significance of these relationships is discussed and at least three independent colonization events of the mid-Atlantic archipelagos by Helichrysum are concluded from the molecular data available.

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Acknowledgements

The material of the new species was collected during the field work of the first author with Teresa Leyens and Isildo Gomes under the Cape Verdean-German project “Nature conservation on the Cape Verde Islands”, which was coordinated by Wolfram Lobin (Botanic Garden of the University Bonn) and funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). We thank Dr. Julián Molero for his help and enthusiasm during the second collection in 2010, which was partly financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (CGL2009-13322-C03-03) and the Catalan government (‘Ajuts a grups consolidats’ 2009/SGR/00439). Special thanks for excellent technical assistance are due to Jana Bansemer (Berlin, molecular laboratory), Ronny Sommerer and Monika Lüchow (Berlin, morphological preparations, SEM, photography) and Christa Menz (image processing). Two reviewers have provided valuable comments on a previous version of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 6-8, D-14195, Berlin, Germany

    Norbert Kilian

  2. Institut Botànic de Barcelona (CSIC – ICUB), Pg. del Migdia s.n., 08038, Barcelona, Spain

    Mercè Galbany-Casals

  3. Institut für Botanik, Universität Regensburg, Universitätsstr. 31, D-93053, Regensburg, Germany

    Christoph Oberprieler

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  1. Norbert Kilian
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  2. Mercè Galbany-Casals
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  3. Christoph Oberprieler
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Correspondence to Norbert Kilian.

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Kilian, N., Galbany-Casals, M. & Oberprieler, C. Helichrysum nicolai (Compositae, Gnaphalieae), Systematics of a New Dwarf Local Endemic of the Cape Verde Islands, W Africa. Folia Geobot 45, 183–199 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-010-9060-y

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