Taxonomic treatments of Pyrenaria jonquieriana (Theaceae) and related taxa

On the basis of field investigation and herbarium specimen examination, Tutcheria multisepala, Pyrenaria poilaneana, Parapyrenaria indochinensis and Camellia luuana are treated to the synonymy of Pyrenaria jonquieriana. In addition, lectotypes are designated for the names Pyrenaria jonquieriana and Pyrenaria poilaneana.

Iphigenia magnifica Ansari & R.S. Rao (Colchicaceae) – A new distributional record to the flora of Eastern Ghats, India

Iphigenia magnifica Ansari & R.S. Rao (Liliales: Colchicaceae), an endemic species of Western Ghats is reported in this communication as a new distributional record for Eastern Ghats from Seshachalam hills of Eastern Ghats, Andhra Pradesh. The present communication provides description of this species along with photographs of habitat, live plant and herbarium specimen, comparison with its allied species, ecology and conservation assessment.

First historical genome of a crop bacterial pathogen from herbarium specimen: Insights into citrus canker emergence

Over the past decade, ancient genomics has been used in the study of various pathogens. In this context, herbarium specimens provide a precious source of dated and preserved DNA material, enabling a better understanding of plant disease emergences and pathogen evolutionary history. We report here the first historical genome of a crop bacterial pathogen, Xanthomonas citri pv. citri (Xci), obtained from an infected herbarium specimen dating back to 1937. Comparing the 1937 genome within a large set of modern genomes, we reconstructed their phylogenetic relationships and estimated evolutionary parameters using Bayesian tip-calibration inferences. The arrival of Xci in the South West Indian Ocean islands was dated to the 19th century, probably linked to human migrations following slavery abolishment. We also assessed the metagenomic community of the herbarium specimen, showed its authenticity using DNA damage patterns, and investigated its genomic features including functional SNPs and gene content, with a focus on virulence factors.

Comprehensive leaf size traits dataset for seven plant species from digitised herbarium specimen images covering more than two centuries

Morphological leaf traits are frequently used to quantify, understand and predict plant and vegetation functional diversity and ecology, including environmental and climate change responses. Although morphological leaf traits are easy to measure, their coverage for characterising variation within species and across temporal scales is limited. At the same time, there are about 3100 herbaria worldwide, containing approximately 390 million plant specimens dating from the 16th to 21st century, which can potentially be used to extract morphological leaf traits. Globally, plant specimens are rapidly being digitised and images are made openly available via various biodiversity data platforms, such as iDigBio and GBIF. Based on a pilot study to identify the availability and appropriateness of herbarium specimen images for comprehensive trait data extraction, we developed a spatio-temporal dataset on intraspecific trait variability containing 128,036 morphological leaf trait measurements for seven selected species. After scrutinising the metadata of digitised herbarium specimen images available from iDigBio and GBIF (21.9 million and 31.6 million images for Tracheophyta; accessed date December 2020), we identified approximately 10 million images potentially appropriate for our study. From the 10 million images, we selected seven species (Salix bebbiana Sarg., Alnus incana (L.) Moench, Viola canina L., Salix glauca L., Chenopodium album L., Impatiens capensis Meerb. and Solanum dulcamara L.) , which have a simple leaf shape, are well represented in space and time and have high availability of specimens per species. We downloaded 17,383 images. Out of these, we discarded 5779 images due to quality issues. We used the remaining 11,604 images to measure the area, length, width and perimeter on 32,009 individual leaf blades using the semi-automated tool TraitEx. The resulting dataset contains 128,036 trait records. We demonstrate its comparability to trait data measured in natural environments following standard protocols by comparing trait values from the TRY database. We conclude that the herbarium specimens provide valuable information on leaf sizes. The dataset created in our study, by extracting leaf traits from the digitised herbarium specimen images of seven selected species, is a promising opportunity to improve ecological knowledge about the adaptation of size-related leaf traits to environmental changes in space and time.

Typification and taxonomic notes of Smilacaceae species in Java

Smilacaceae is known as a taxa with wide phenotypic variation and their taxonomical complexities remain unsolved. The three species of Smilacaceae housed in Java, are given nomenclature history. Since all the potential sources of original material have been investigated, but nothing has been identified, three neotypifications were designated here. Herbarium specimen of Koorders 34990β in Herbarium Bogoriense (BO) was chosen as the neotype of Smilax klotzschii. The de Groot & Wehlburg RD52 herbarium specimen in BO was chosen as the neotype of S. nageliana and Blume 463 herbarium specimen in L was chosen as the neotype of S. odoratissima.

Molecular Identification and Morphological Characterization of Ficus sp. (Moraceae) in Bogor Botanic Gardens

Ficus spp. belongs to the tribe Ficeae in the Moraceae family. Many members of this genus have been collected and grown in Bogor Botanic Gardens. There are 519 living collections of Ficus conserved since 1817, and 13 of them have not been identified until the species level. This research aimed to identify the Ficus sp. originated from Kaur Selatan (Bengkulu) using morphological and molecular approaches. Morphological characterization and herbarium specimen observation have been carried out to identify the Ficus sp. The molecular approach was conducted through DNA barcoding using ITS primer. The molecular identification using ITS sequence showed that Ficus sp. is Ficus crassiramea with 99.87% similarity to the sequence in NCBI. Morphological observation through herbarium specimen showed that there are 9 vegetative characters specific to Ficus crassiramea.