A review of Bolboschoenus species (Cyperaceae) in Italy based on herbarium data

Abstract

In Europe, the genus Bolboschoenus has recently undergone many taxonomic revision studies, but in Italy a review of the materials conserved in herbaria, in accordance with the most recent taxonomic literature, was still missing. The aim of this study was therefore to review Bolboschoenus species from Italy, based on herbarium data. The specimens deposited in the main Italian herbaria were analyzed by a morphometric study, based on measurements and statistical analyses of the characters most commonly used in the updated taxonomic literature. Moreover, an analysis of the national distribution of the resulting species was carried on, also taking into account Italian data from international herbaria, previously used in specialist works. The study confirmed the diagnostic importance of some traits related to the achene morphology and anatomy, in particular the ratio between mesocarp and exocarp. On the other hand, some inflorescence-related characters, which were commonly used in the past, proved to have less discriminant power. The study revealed various distribution novelties, also with respect to the most recent national botanical literature. Finally, B. yagara was reported for the first time in Italy.

Keywords:

• Distribution
• Italian flora
• multivariate analysis
• systematics
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Chiara Nepi (Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence) and all the curators and herbarium staff consulted for their availability and support for this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The work (ZH) was supported by long-term research development project No. RVO 67985939 of the Czech Academy of Sciences and by project no. 00023272 (National Museum, DKRVO 2019–2023/4.1.b) of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.