New taxa of ‘leafless’ Tetratheca (Elaeocarpaceae, formerly Tremandraceae) from Western Australia
Ryonen ButcherA Western Australian Herbarium, Department of Environment and Conservation, Locked Bag 104, Bentley Delivery Centre, WA 6983, Australia. Email: Ryonen.Butcher@dec.wa.gov.au
B School of Plant Biology (Botany MO90), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia.
Australian Systematic Botany 20(2) 139-160 https://doi.org/10.1071/SB06015
Submitted: 15 May 2006 Accepted: 8 February 2007 Published: 26 April 2007
Abstract
The relationships among rare ‘leafless’ species of Tetratheca Sm. occurring on banded ironstone ranges near Koolyanobbing, Western Australia, and allied, unclassified, populations from Eneabba, Newdegate and the Die Hardy Range have been assessed by molecular characters. These findings, in conjunction with morphological investigations, have identified a new species and two new subspecies from within the ‘T. aphylla group’ and these are formally described here. Tetratheca nephelioides R.Butcher, is geographically restricted to the Eneabba area and has close morphological affinity to T. aphylla F.Muell. Tetratheca aphylla subsp. megacarpa R.Butcher, is restricted to the Newdegate area, some 300 km south of the only known populations of T. aphylla subsp. aphylla in the Helena and Aurora Range. Tetratheca paynterae Alford subsp. cremnobata R.Butcher is restricted to the Die Hardy Range, c. 10 km north-east of the only known population of T. paynterae subsp. paynterae at ‘Windarling’. All of these taxa are recognised as Declared Rare Flora. In the process of updating the existing key to ‘leafless’ species of Tetratheca to include these new taxa, two additional new species were identified from within collections of T. nuda Lindl. These are described here as T. angulata R.Butcher and T. applanata R.Butcher. Images and distribution maps for all taxa are provided.
Acknowledgements
I thank Jerome Bull for his enthusiasm in the field, Matthew Williams for his assistance with morphometric analyses and Jenny Chappill (dec.), Marco Duretto, Neil Gibson, Terry Macfarlane and Juliet Wege for taxonomic discussions. Thanks are also due to Dot and Ron Budge and Joy and Herb (dec.) Budge for their hospitality at Portman Iron Ore’s Mt Jackson camp during field work. I would particularly like to thank Paul Wilson for his assistance with the Latin and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments towards the improvement of this paper. Funding from Portman Iron Ore Pty Ltd for the production of colour images is gratefully acknowledged. The author was partly funded through the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation’s Biodiversity Conservation Initiative (BCI) Project: ‘Resolution and description of new plant species in the Yilgarn ironstone and Ravensthorpe Range areas subject to mining interest’.
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