Miliusa malnadense Page & Nerlekar, 2016

Miliusa malnadense Page & Nerlekar , sp. nov., Figs. 1 View FIGURE 1 & 2 View FIGURE 2

This species can be distinguished by the presence of pubescent young branches, coppery red young leaves, inner petals glabrous outside, apices and margins densely puberulous inside and purple coloured, carpels elongated, curved and pubescent throughout its length, ovoid-oblong stigma and globose monocarps.

Type:— INDIA. Karnataka: Chikkmagaluru district, Kudremukh National Park, 13.131633 N 75.280404 E, 1450 m, 18 November 2013, (with flowers), Page 102 (holotype MH!, isotype JCB!, FRLH!).

Small evergreen trees, 3–5 m; bark grayish brown, branches terete, lenticelled and pubescent when young. Leaves simple, alternate, 5.0–11.5 × 1.5–3.5 cm, oblong to lanceolate, bases slightly unequal, cuneate or rounded, apices acute to acuminate, petioles 2–3 mm, pubescent in young leaves, glabrous when mature; young leaves coppery red; margins entire, ciliate at least in young leaves; midrib and nerves rusty tomentose on the abaxial surface and sparsely so on the adaxial surface; 8–9 pairs of secondary nerves, prominent beneath and faintly looping. Flowers axillary and solitary, bisexual; pedicels 2.5–3.0 cm, glabrous; bracts 3, minute, triangular, ca. 0.5 mm, 2 basal and one just above them, ovate-lanceolate, densely tomentose; sepals 3, each 1.0 mm, triangular, acute, ciliate, reflexed; petals 6 (3+3), outer 3 reduced, sepaloid, ovate, 1.0 mm, alternate to sepals; inner 3 elliptic-lanceolate, acute, purple with faint maroon streaks inside, c. 2.0 × 1.5 cm, tightly appressed at base, veins 7, glabrous outside, apices and margins densely puberulous, basal saccate portion glabrous inside, recurved along margins; torus ovoid; stamens numerous, paired, in ca. 5 whorls, ca. 1 × 1 mm, intermixed with numerous ca. 0.5 mm long hairs that are present on the torus; staminodes absent; connectives, not extending at apex, obtuse at top; anthers extrose; carpels up to 10, elongated, curved, pubescent throughout the outer ovary wall, ca. 2 mm, with 1–2 ovules; styles short or absent; stigmas ovoid to oblong, slightly tilted, with viscous exudates. Fruiting pedicel terete, 3 cm; monocarps 6–10, each up to 10 mm across, globose, glabrous, mucronate; stipes 8–10 mm long; seeds one or two (ripe fruits not found).

Phenology:— Flowering and fruiting seen from November to May.

Etymology:— The specific epithet ‘‘ malnadense ’’ refers to the Kartanaka part of the Western Ghats from Shimoga to Kodagu which is the currently known distribution range of this species.

Distribution and associated species: — Miliusa malnadense is so far known only from the Kudremukh national park in the Western Ghats mountain range which is one of the global biodiversity hotspots ( Myers et al. 2000). Miliusa malnadense is probably restricted to forests at elevations above 1000 m in the Shola-Grassland ecosystem that harbor significant proportion of endemic taxa ( Robin & Nandini 2012). Associated species observed in the type locality were species of the genus Ochlandra Thwaites , Lasianthus Jack , Cinnamomum Schaeffer , Myristica dactyloides Gaertner , Euonymus indicus B.Heyne ex Wall. and Schefflera micrantha (C.B.Clarke) Gamble. Conservation status—Data Deficient.

Interrelationships and critical notes:— Miliusa malnadense resembles M. tirunelvelica and M. wightiana in having long glabrous pedicels, the shape of the corolla and the ciliate sepals and outer petals. It differs from both taxa in characters listed in Table 1. We speculate that M. malnadense belongs to the M. campanulata Pierre (1881: 41) group based on the tightly appressed nature of the inner petals ( Chaowasku & Kessler 2013). Miliusa tirunelvelica and M. wightiana are not known to occur at the type locality of the new species.

Although Mitra (1993) described the carpel of M. wightiana as ‘pubescent with straight hairs’, authentic sources like Hooker & Thomson 1855 (protologue), Hooker (1872), Gamble (1915) and King (1893) in addition to personal field observations confirms that the carpel is glabrous in this species. It is possible that the specimens collected as M. wightiana from the Shimoga district of the same state [(KFP 6838 (JCB!)] may be M. malnadense , but due to inadequate evidence from the herbarium sheet, we cannot strongly ascertain its identity.