Silene fetlerii D. Pavlova

Doumas, Panayiotis, Goula, Katerina & Constantinidis, Theophanis, 2022, Thirty-two new and noteworthy floristic records from north-eastern Greece, Biodiversity Data Journal 10, pp. 81817-81817 : 81817

Silene fetlerii D. Pavlova

Silene fetlerii D. Pavlova in Ann. Bot. Fennici 51: 387-393 (2014)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence : recordedBy: P. Doumas; Taxon : scientificName: Silene fetlerii; family: Caryophyllaceae ; genus: Silene ; specificEpithet: fetlerii; taxonRank: species; Location : continent: Europe; country: Greece; stateProvince: Nomos Xanthis; verbatimLocality: ca. 2.4 km SE of Potamochori Village; verbatimElevation: 553 m; verbatimLatitude: 41°14′; verbatimLongitude: 25°04′; Identification: identifiedBy: P. Doumas, K. Goula & Th. Constantinidis; Event: eventDate: 15 May 2021; habitat: scrub, on serpentine; Record Level: collectionID: 18; institutionCode: ATHU; basisOfRecord: Specimen

Taxon discussion

Silene fetlerii is a new addition to the Greek flora.

This is a rare and local species, recently described from Bulgaria and thought to be confined to the serpentine substrates of only two localities, near the Villages of Fotinovo and Chichevo to the south ( Pavlova 2014). Our Greek specimen (Fig. 15) agrees with the description of the Bulgarian material in all essential characters: it has narrow linear leaves and lanceolate bracts, 6-9 mm long calyces, 5-6 mm long capsules included in calyx, a capsule/anthophore ratio of 1.3-2/1 and a rounded capsule base with a narrow and acute neck. We did not observe any viscid indumentum on the lower stem nodes in our specimen, a character usually found in the Bulgarian plants.

This is another species that turns out to cross the political border between Bulgaria and Greece as the new locality lies ca. 12 km south of the border. The new locality expands the known species’ distribution for ca. 25 km to the SW (Fig. 11 ). This single Greek population fits the Critically Endangered Category [B1ab(i ii iii iv) + 2ab(i ii iii iv)] ( IUCN 2012) and shares the same habitat characteristics with that described by Pavlova (2014); even some rare, range-restricted serpentine taxa that accompany Silene fetlerii in Bulgaria ( Aethionema saxatile subsp. rhodopaeum , Onosma kittanae , see under these taxa) are also found in Greece. The identity of the Silene spergulifolia collections from Nomos Evrou needs further investigation.

Figures

Figure 11. Distribution map of Onosma kittanae, Aethionema saxatile subsp. rhodopaeum and Silene fetlerii in Greece and Bulgaria.