Gadoria Güemes & Mota, 2017

Güemes, Jaime & Mota, Juan F., 2017, Gadoria (Antirrhineae, Plantaginaceae): A new genus, endemic from Sierra de Gádor, Almería, Spain, Phytotaxa 298 (3), pp. 201-221 : 204-205

Gadoria Güemes & Mota , gen. nov.

Type:— Gadoria falukei Güemes & Mota , sp nov.

Diagnosis:—Like Asarina Mill. , Gadoria is a perennial suffrutescent herb with branches not cirrhose; leaves homomorphic, simple, palmately veined, petiolate (petioles not cirrhose), opposite, densely glandular-pubescent; flowers zygomorphic, personate, solitary in the bract-axil; bracts similar to the leaves. It differs from Asarina in the flowers, with a corolla-tube shorter than the calyx lobes, not clearly longer (at least twice as longer); the capsules have a thick and woody wall that is opened by two circular and well defined pores (one per locule), partially enclosed by two rigid semi-persistent opercula, not thin and papyraceous capsule wall, which is opened by two irregular and diffuse pores (one per loculus), without opercula.

Perennial suffrutescent, glandular-pubescent, herbs; stems homomorphic, procumbent, trailing or ascending, simple or branched at the base, the branches not cirrhose; leaves homomorphic, simple, reniform to ovate-cordate, lobed, palmately veined, petiolate, opposite; petioles not cirrhose, shorter than the leaf limb. Flowers zygomorphic, pedicellate, solitary in the bract-axils. Bracts opposite, similar to leaves, slightly smaller towards the apex. Pedicels shorter than bracts, not accrescent, arched, not cirrhose, erect-patent during anthesis and reflexed at fruiting. Calyx deeply divided, the lobes entire, more or less equal, imbricate, longer than corolla-tube, accrescent, as long as the capsule at maturity. Corolla personate, with tube cylindrical, not dorsi-ventrally compressed, not canaliculated abaxially, briefly gibbous abaxially at base; limb bilabiate, the lips more or less equal; adaxial lip patent, bilobed, lobes entire, divergent or parallel, not imbricate, flat; abaxial lip with conspicuous bigibbous palate partially occluding mouth of tube, trilobed, lobes entire, slightly unequal—the central as long as the lateral, slightly narrower. Fertile stamens 4, didynamous, the adjacent pairs marginally coherent, slightly exserted, the connective not dilated above anther; staminode minute. Ovary bilocular; loculi equal in size and number of ovules; many ovules in each locule; style simple, erect, partially persistent in fruit; stigma capitate, entire, positioned between anthers of fertile stamens. Capsule bisymmetrical, ovoid; wall hard, stiff, woody; septum erect, extended by an apiculum resulting from desiccation of the base of the style; loculi equal, many-seeded, dehiscing more or less simultaneously, each locule opening by regular valves forming solitary, apical, simple, regular, round, well defined pore, opening by one valve circumcised valve, laterally attached to the wall, which remains for a long time on mature capsule. Seeds narrowly ovoid, truncate at the extremes, more or less radially and transversally symmetrical, deep and irregularly reticulates; hilum sub-basal; ridges sinuate, broad, rounded, more or less anastomosed.

Etymology:—The genus takes its name from the Sierra de Gádor, Almería ( Spain), where it appears to be geographically restricted.