Morphological, karyological and taxonomic remarks on Ferulago nodosa (L.) Boiss. (Apiaceae)

Abstract

Western (Sicilian) and eastern (Balcan-aegean) populations of the Balcan-tyrrhenian Ferulago nodosa are reported to be different in some morphological characters, and were considered different species by some authors in XIX century. In this work, fruit and pollen morphologies have been compared in Sicilian and Cretan plants; also, the chromosome number of Sicilian plants has been ascertained. Preliminary results highlight a general homogeneity between the two populations, nevertheless showing significant differences in some parameters (fruit form, pollen size). For this reason, and considering the geographic disjunction of the Sicilian plants, the two populations are proposed to be treated as two different subspecies: F. nodosa subsp. nodosa in the east and F. nodosa subsp. rigida (Ten.) Troia & Raimondo comb. & stat. nov. in the west. The names Ferula rigida Ten. and Ferula geniculata Guss. are also typified.

Keywords:

• Crete
• fruit
• pollen
• Sicily
• typification
• vascular flora

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Christini Fournaraki (MAICh, Chania, Crete, Greece) for collecting fruits in Crete; Werner Greuter for kindly providing access to his herbarium (PAL-Gr); Chiara Nepi (curator of the Herbarium of Florence, FI) for kindly providing the Cretan specimen; Annalisa Santangelo (Dip. Scienze Biologiche, sez. Biologia Vegetale, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) for assistance in selecting types and Carmela di Liberto (Dipartimento di Biologia ambientale e Biodiversità, Università degli Studi di Palermo) for technical assistance with scanning electron microscopy. This work has been partially funded by Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research through the PRIN project “Conservazione ex situ e caratterizzazione tassonomica, ecofisiologica e genetica di specie minacciate della flora spontanea italiana”, scientific coordinator Prof. F. M. Raimondo.