Heteropappus

Farhani, Tayyebeh, Kazempour-Osaloo, Shahrokh, Zare-Maivan, Hassan & Mozaffarian, Valiollah, 2018, Evolutionary history of the tribe Astereae in the Flora Iranica area: Systematic implications, Phytotaxa 379 (1), pp. 95-117 : 111

Heteropappus and Aster alpinus

Our analyses in corroboration with the recent studies ( Li et al. 2012, Korolyuk et al. 215) displayed that the analyzed sample of H. altaicus Novopokrov. is placed within Aster s.str. clade and forms a sister group relationship with H. altaicus var. millefolius Willd. Heteropappus is a medium-size genus of 30 species, with a wide distribution ranging from eastern Asia and the Himalayas to Central Asia and Iran. Heteropappus altaicus and H. holohermaphroditus Grierson are the only representatives the genus in the Flora Iranica area, characterized by a monomorphic pappus and zygomorphic disc florets with unequal corolla lobes ( Grierson 1964, Grierson & Rechinger 1982). As indicated in the previous studies ( Ito et al. 1998, Li et al. 2012) these features are similar to some species of Aster confirming that the genus should be reduced to the synonymy of Aster . Indeed it was treated under Aster sect. Pseudocalimeris Kitam. in Flora of China ( Chen et al. 2011). In the Flora Iranica area ( Grierson & Rechinger 1982), the genus Aster with the exclusion of A. tripolium L. [now as Tripolium pannonicum (Jacq.) Dobrocz. : Nesom & Robinson 2007] is represented by three species ( A. alpinus , A. flaccidus Bunge and A. aitchisonii Boiss. ). In Iran, two species recognized in the genus are A. alpinus and the recently established A. bachtiaricus ( Mozaffarian 1996) , which is here treated as Iranoaster . In the present circumscription, Aster alpinus is the sole species of the genus in Iran, which is closely related to A. amellus L., the type species of the genus, in Aster s.str. clade. Aster alpinus is a widespread species with a disjunctive distribution in Eurasian–West-American boreal-montane continental habitats ( Korolyuk et al. 2015).