Sanicula fengjiensis (Apiaceae), a New Species From China Revealed by Integrative Morphological and Molecular Evidence

ABSTRACT

Sanicula fengjiensis (Apiaceae), a new species discovered in Fengjie County, Chongqing Municipality, southwestern China, is described and illustrated. It is morphologically most similar to S. caerulescens in having pseudo‐racemose inflorescences, but differs in having predominantly white petals (vs. blue to purple) and distinctive fruit ornamentation, with prickles absent, the ribs basally fused into a thin layer, and the valleculae occasionally bearing sparse scales or tubercles (vs. fruits sparsely to densely covered with short, straight spinous bristles). Quantitative morphological analyses further distinguished S. fengjiensis from S. caerulescens and the phylogenetically proximate S. lamelligera and S. orthacantha . In particular, the maximum height of fruit‐surface appendages in S. fengjiensis (0.033–0.101 mm) showed no overlap with the observed ranges of the other three species. The complete plastomes of four sampled accessions of S. fengjiensis were all 155,501 bp in length and exhibited the typical quadripartite structure. Plastome and nrDNA phylogenies based on complete plastome sequences and combined ITS and ETS sequences, respectively, consistently recovered the sampled accessions of S. fengjiensis as a clade, although its relationships with other Sanicula species differed between the two datasets. In addition to the extant population in Fengjie, a historical herbarium specimen collected from Yichang, Hubei Province, in 1963 is attributable to the new species. The combined morphological and phylogenetic evidence supports the recognition of S. fengjiensis as a distinct species.