Abstract
The genus Muscari Miller (1754: 926; Asparagaceae) comprises about 80 species (Böhnert et al. 2023) of mainly spring-flowering geophytes and, like many other genera in the Mediterranean, it has a long and turbulent taxonomic history (Garbari & Greuter 1970, Davis & Stuart 1980, Speta 1982). The most recent attempt to formalize the generic boundaries was made by using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism data resulting in a comprehensive generic treatment in its widest sense that accepts five subgenera, of which one is described as new (Böhnert et al. 2023). The genus in its current circumscription sensu Böhnert et al. (2023) is mainly distributed in the Mediterranean region, but reaches as far as temperate Europe in the west to Afghanistan in the east (Davis & Stuart 1980, Breckle & Rafiqpoor 2010), while Turkey and Greece must be regarded as centres of species diversity for the genus (Davis & Stuart 1984, Dimopoulos et al. 2013, Böhnert & Lobin 2017). Several species have attracted horticultural attention for centuries and subsequently many species have been described from cultivation, which led to a complex taxonomic situation, and several taxonomic names still remain without typification.
References
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