Ophiorrhiza meenachilarensis, a new species of Rubiaceae from southern Western Ghats, India
From Firenze University Press Journal: Journal of Plant Taxonomy and Geography ( Webbia )
Anoop Puthuparampil Balan, KSCSTE-Malabar Botanical Garden and Institute for Plant Sciences, Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Aloor Jose Robi, Department of Botany, Bishop Abraham Memorial College, Thuruthicad, Pathanamthitta, Kerala, India
Ginu Joseph,Department of Botany, Bishop Abraham Memorial College, Thuruthicad, Pathanamthitta, Kerala, India
Ophiorriza L. is a predominantly herbaceous genus that belongs to the tribe Ophiorrhizeae, subfamily Rubioideae, Rubiaceae (Bremer and Manen 2000). It is a species-rich genus consisting of 318 species, one subspecies and five varieties (WCSPF 2019) chiefly distributed in wet tropical forests of South-East Asia, extending to Australia, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands (Darwin 1976; Chen and Taylor 2011).
The genus is taxonomically complicated and has been less-studied by taxonomists except Darwin (1976), Lo (1990), Halford (1991), Deb and Mondal (1997) and Tao and Taylor (2011). Deb and Mondal (1997) revised the genus in the Indian subcontinent, and recognized 47 species and 9 varieties from India. Since Deb and Mondal (1997), seven species have been added to the flora of India (Ramamurthy and Rajan 1985; Khan et al. 1998; Hareesh et al. 2015a,b, 2017a,b, 2018). Western Ghats is one of the diversity centres of Ophiorrhiza species followed by the north-eastern Himalayas.
Nearly 21 taxa are distributed in the evergreen for-est of the Western Ghats (Deb and Mondal 1997; Nayar et al. 2014). Ophiorrhiza species are commercially important as source of Camp-tothecin (CPT), a potential anticancer drug. Rajan et al. (2016) screened 11 species and 3 varieties of Ophiorrhiza from the southern Western Ghats and found that O. mungos L. (396.54 μg/g, dr. wt.) and O. rugosa Wall. var. angustifolia (373.19 μg/g, dr. wt.)are the two best known sources of CPT, while O. rugosa var. decumbens (18.55 μg/g, dr. wt.) and O. hirsutula (17.14 μg/g, dr. wt.) showed moderate contents of CPT. While conducting floristic explorations in the Vagamon hills of southern Western Ghats, the authors came across a few populations of a densely hairy species of Ophiorrhiza growing in moist shady areas of an ever-green forest patch in Kottayam-Idukki districts border. After critical study and comparison with other species of Ophiorrhiza and scrutiny of literature, it turned out to be quite different taxa from known species hence described as new to science and illustrated here. Final author conducted systematic screening of CPT in the newly described species and found that the CPT level is zero.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/jopt-8508
Read Full Text: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/webbia/article/view/8508
