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. 2025 Apr 10:255:85-102.
doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.255.146942. eCollection 2025.

 Festucasilana (Poaceae), a new species from the Sila plateau in Italy

Mattia Pallanza  1   2 , Simone Orsenigo  1   2 , Nicola Maria Giuseppe Ardenghi  1 , Liliana Bernardo  3 , Petr Šmarda  4 , Petra Šarhanová  4 , Graziano Rossi  1 , Bruno Foggi  5
Affiliations

 Festucasilana (Poaceae), a new species from the Sila plateau in Italy

Mattia Pallanza et al. PhytoKeys. .

Abstract

A new hexaploid species of fine-leaved fescue from Festucasect.Festuca (Festucasilana Ardenghi, Pallanza & Foggi, sp. nov.) endemic to the Sila plateau is described. The new taxon shows morphological affinities with species of the F.marginata group from which it can be distinguished by higher ploidy, ecology, and leaf cross section anatomy. ddRADseq data suggests F.silana could be a local hexaploid descendant/derivate of the widespread diploid F.marginata. Its distribution is restricted to several localities in the Sila highlands of the Southern Apennines, Italy.

Keywords: Calabria; Italy; RAD sequencing; endemic; fescue; flow cytometry; morphometry; new species; ploidy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Biplot for the PCoA performed with Gower’s distance.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Scatterplot for the DA performed on the three morphological groups individuated by the PCoA.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Phylogenetic tree of thirteen Festuca individuals, constructed using RAxML based on 2,713 loci and maximum likelihood estimation. The numbers in the nodes represent bootstrap values (%) from 1,000 replicates.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Illustration of Festucasilana Pallanza, Ardenghi & Foggi based on the specimens from the locus classicus A overall habitus and morphology of the species B detailed appearance of the spikelet C detailed view of lemma and palea D1 leaf cross-section of the holotype D2–D5 different leaves cross-sections showcasing intraspecific variability.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Map of the Sila and known stations of F.silana occurring within the plateau.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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