Limonium hierapetrae

Koutroumpa, Konstantina, 2024, Limonium artelariae (Plumbaginaceae), a new endemic species and further taxonomic and floristic notes on the genus in the island of Crete, Willdenowia 54 (1), pp. 65-79 : 68

The circumscription of Limonium hierapetrae

Limonium hierapetrae was described by Rechinger (1943) from a sandy beach next to Ierapetra in SE Crete. This endemic species was later found in a further five localities between Makrygialos and Nea Myrtos in the same wider area by Artelari (1989c), who studied the biosystematics of the species, recorded its morphological variation and provided a detailed species description. Brullo & Erben (2016) described L. minoicum Erben & Brullo as a new species from SE Crete occurring between Tertsa and Tsoutsouros, a few kilometres W of the then known distribution of L. hierapetrae . According to the authors, the new species differs from L. hierapetrae by its shorter floral spikelets, inner bracts and calyces. However, Brullo & Erben (2016) gave a different description for L. hierapetrae than the one previously published by Artelari (1989c). Specifically, the measurements given for the sizes of leaves, spikes, spikelets, bracts and calyces by Brullo & Erben (2016) were only a subset of the size ranges given for L. hierapetrae by Artelari (1989c), namely the upper size ranges were assigned to L. hierapetrae and the lower size ranges were assigned to the newly described L. minoicum , for all the characters mentioned above. When Brullo & Erben’s (2016) descriptions were employed to identify specimens collected along the coast between Moni Kapsa and Dermatos-Tsoutsouros (representing the entire range of L. hierapetrae and L. minoicum), several of them belonging to previously identified L. hierapetrae populations were assigned to L. minoicum or L. cornarianum sensu Brullo & Erben (2016) , and many other specimens could not be unambiguously identified with either of them, but all perfectly match Artelari’s (1989c) concept of L. hierapetrae . The phylogenomic analysis confirms that samples of L. hierapetrae and L. minoicum form one well-supported lineage, with L. minoicum specimens from the type locality and the population in Dermatos (bank of the river Anapodaris) intermingled with L. hierapetrae individuals from Moni Kapsa beach, Ferma and Ierapetra (i.e. the two species were not reciprocally monophyletic; Koutroumpa 2020). Additionally, chromosome counts of L. minoicum material with provenance from its locus classicus, M. Erben Li-1708 (FR [FR-0128958], B [ B 10 1009652]), share the same chromosome number (2 n = 43) with L. hierapetrae ( Brullo & Erben 2016). Combining the morphological, molecular and chromosomal evidence, it becomes clear that L. minoicum is conspecific with L. hierapetrae . Also, L. chrisianum Brullo & Guarino , described from the islet of Chrysi S of Ierapetra, is conspecific with L. hierapetrae and represents just a small form of it, because the morphological features previously used to differentiate it from L. hierapetrae (e.g. smaller size and leaf length, dense arrangement of spikelets and larger middle bract width, Brullo & Guarino 2000) clearly fall within the range of variation of the latter species.