Tmesipteris alticola (Psilotaceae), a new fern species endemic to New Caledonia

ABSTRACT

Tmesipteris alticola is described here as a new fern species endemic to New Caledonia's Grande Terre. It is a fifth species of Tmesipteris for the territory, and the second endemic. The obovate leaves and conic synangia of T. alticola distinguish it morphologically from all other species of Tmesipteris. Phylogenetic analyses of chloroplast DNA sequences support its distinctiveness, and indicate it is most closely related to T. truncata and T. vieillardii among the sampled species. Tmesipteris alticola is known from only four mountainous locations, all with ultramafic substrates in Province Sud, at elevations of 1200 m–1500 m, where it grows terrestrially or as a low epiphyte, seemingly mostly on ridges or around summits within short-statured cloud forest. We propose a provisional IUCN conservation status of Near Threatened for T. alticola because of its limited known occurrences. Tmesipteris alticola adds to a slew of fern species that have been recently newly described, reinstated, or recorded in New Caledonia.

KEYWORDS:

• Conservation
• DNA sequencing
• morphology
• phylogeny
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

We thank those who have generously assisted our fieldwork in New Caledonia, especially Christian Laudereau and Louis Thouvenot. We also particularly acknowledge David Bruy and Jacqueline Tinel of NOU herbarium, and the staff of Endemia. Collections were made under permits 1323-2016/ARR/DENV and 3089-2019/ARR/DENV from Province Sud, and 2012 permits from Province Nord and Province Sud to Louis Thouvenot. We also thank Alison Kellow and Li-Yaung Kou for their ongoing collaborations with Tmesipteris phylogeny. We appreciate the comments of Jérôme Munzinger and Michael Sundue on the submitted manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded from Te Papa’s Acquisitions and Natural History Research budgets.