Miliusa flaviviridis N.V.Page, M. Poti & K. Ravikumar, 2016

Miliusa flaviviridis N.V.Page, M. Poti & K. Ravikumar View in CoL , sp. nov. (Figs. 1,2)

Diagnosis: This species can be distinguished from the other peninsular Indian species based on its glabrous twigs, leaves and pedicels, long pedicel length, fringed calyx, recurved green inner petals, broader than long stamens, curved carpels and oblong, club-shaped stigma.

Type:— INDIA. Tamil Nadu: Tirunelveli district, Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Thirukurungudi Range , Naraikadu , 900–1200 m, 22 February 2014 (with flowers and fruits), Page 104 (holotype: FRLH!; isotypes: JCB!, MH!)

Evergreen shrubs or small trees, 2–7 m high; branchlets terete, lenticellate, glabrous. Leaves simple, alternate, 5.5–8.0 × 1.8–3.0 cm, elliptic-lanceolate, glossy, green on both sides (in vivo), grayish green (ex cicco), glabrous; base cuneate; apex acute or slightly acuminate; petioles 0.3–0.4 cm, swollen; secondary nerves 10–12 pairs, loop-forming. Flowers solitary, axillary, pendulous, pedicel 1.2–1.3 × 0.5–1.0 mm, glabrous, slender, gradually thickening towards the flower; bracts 3, minute, triangular, margins fringed, 2 basal and 1 above them; sepals green, 3, free, each 1.5 × 0.7 mm, triangular, margins fringed; outer petals green, 3, free, 1.5–2.0 × 0.5 mm, ovate, concave, apex acute, margins minutely fringed; inner petals 3, ca. 1.0–1.2 × 0.4–0.5 cm, tightly appressed along margins at base, ovate, tips recurved, puberulous along margins and towards apex, apex sub-acute, base sub-saccate, abaxial surface yellowish white, with a longitudinal median groove, adaxial surface greenish yellow; torus hairy; stamens ca. 35, spirally arranged, broader than long, ca. 1 mm; anthers extrose; carpels 8–10, ovate, falcate, narrowing towards the transition between ovary and stigma; stigma club-shaped, oblong, narrow and curved at the base; monocarps 0.8–1.0 cm in diameter, globose; stipes 4–5 × 2–3 mm long, glabrous. Seed 1 (morphology not observed).

Phenology:— Flowering and fruiting January–May.

Etymology:— The specific epithet refers to yellowish green color of the inner petals.

Distribution:— Miliusa flaviviridis is known only from two localities, Naraikadu and Kanikatti within the Kalakad- Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, which are part of Agasthyamalai Biosphere region of the southern Western Ghats. M. flaviviridis is likely to be a narrowly endemic species with its distribution range restricted to the Agasthyamalai region. It is not sympatric with any other species of Miliusa , although M. wightiana and M. tirunelvelica have also been recorded from other parts of Agasthyamalai hills.

Interrelationships and critical notes:— Apart from the species described here, three other species of Miliusa recorded from the evergreen forests of peninsular India exhibit long pedicel lengths (> 1cm) and numerous spirally arranged stamens. The new species can be distinguished from these three species based on the characters summarized in Table 1.

Miliusa flaviviridis and the morphologically similar species discussed above exhibit axillary flowers and inner petal margins that are tightly appressed from base to ± midpoint at anthesis. These morphological features are consistent with those of clade B identified by Chaowasku et al. (2013). These traits are also seen in other species of Miliusa distributed in the wet forests of the Western Ghats, which suggest that these species are likely to be related to the species of clade B in Chaowasku et al. (2013).