Christolea pterosperma (Brassicaceae), a new species from Tibet (China)

Abstract

During research in the late 1990s on the account of Brassicaceae for the flora of China (Zhou et al., 2001), the present author examined thousands of specimens from the major herbaria richest in Chinese plants, including A, B, BM, E, GH, IBSC, K, KUN, LE, NAS, P, PE, S, US, W, and WU. As a result, several novelties were described (e.g., Al-Shehbaz & Yang, 1998, 2000; Al-Shehbaz et al., 2000a–c). A few others were represented by incomplete material and remained undescribed with the hope of re-collecting them in southwestern and western China, including Sichuan and Yunnan provinces and Xinjiang and Xizang (Tibet) autonomous regions. Among such incomplete material is a collection by Victor Jacquemont from western Tibet [as India] with a few late-season aborted flowers. The plants are easily identified to the genus Christolea Cambessedes in Jacquemont (1844: 17, t. 17) using the Flora of China (Zhou et al., 2001) and Flora Pan-Himalaya (Al-Shehbaz, 2015). However, a close comparison of with the generic type, C. crassifolia Cambess., and the more recently recognized C. niyaensis An (1995: 376), shows that it differs from them in many significant ways (see below) that support its recognition as a novelty despite lacking normal flowers. Unfortunately, no additional collections of the species are known.