Myanmar becomes home to new species of Marsdenia

Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wuhan Botanical Garden recently collaborated to identify Marsdenia burmanica Wen B. Xu & J. Y. Shen, a new species of Southeast Asia. Taiwania has published this significant study.

In 1810, Marsdenia R. Brown was founded. It has about 100 species, most of which are found in tropical Africa, Asia, and America. This genus has an extremely complex evolutionary relationship and taxonomy categorization. More than 20 new species of Marsdenia have been described and published in recent years.

However, Liede-Schumann et al. (2022) proposed to restrict Marsdenia s.str. to a tiny clade of Asian species based on an extensively studied molecular phylogeny of the pantropical, primarily forest-dwelling tribe Marsdenieae (Apocynaceae), which included about a quarter of the approximately 740 species.

Similar to M. hainanensis, M. sinensis, and M. tenii, M. burmanica also has campanulate flowers, a fusiform gynostegium that protrudes from the corolla tube, a stigma head with two clefts, a purple corolla, and a corona with two oval protrusions at the base.

Currently, it is known that M. burmanica is found in Hongga Mountain, Putao County, Kachin State, Myanmar, where it thrives on a sunny hillside at an altitude of roughly 950 m.

The protection level of M. burmanica, however, has been tentatively evaluated by researchers as being inadequate according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List criteria due to the lack of a more in-depth assessment of this species’ natural distribution.

The Wuhan Botanical Garden’s Horticultural and Conservation Center has published 24 new species in the last 10 years. M. Burmanica is the second new Apocynaceae vine species to be published by the center in a row.