POACEAE

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Proposal of three new species of Dichanthelium from fire-maintained pinelands of northeastern Florida, eastern North Carolina, and North Andros Island ( The Bahamas)

Primary authors:Richard J. LeBlond, Bruce A.Sorrie, and Susan C.Carr

We describe three new species of Dichanthelium from fire-maintained pineland communities of eastern North Carolina, northeastern Florida, and North Andros Island in the Bahamas. The taxonomy of Dichanthelium has long been one of turmoil and differences in concepts, from the issue of its recognition (or not) as separate from Panicum (now clearly resolved) to the taxonomic concepts to be applied in the recognition of species and infraspecies (still highly uncertain). Majure et al. (2023) have initiated the effort to apply phylogenetic analyses to further assess the evolutionary mechanisms within the genus and to reassess taxonomic concepts and ranks based on the integration of new and old tools. Here, we propose three additional, morphologically distinctive species of Dichanthelium in the hopes that they will be included in future synthetic approaches to species delimitation in the genus.