Master de Biodiversidad: Conservacion y evolucion - Universitat de Valencia. Facultat de Ciencies Biologiques / Instituto Superior de AgronomiaThe genus Limonium Miller is a highly complex taxonomic group and a large number of micro-species has been described as a result of their reproductive strategies, sexual and/or apomixis. In Portugal, there are few and old studies on Limonium species, although the country has exceptional conditions for their presence, given that they inhabit rocky cliffs, beaches and salt-marshes.
This study was intended to clarify the identity of ambiguous specimens related to taxon Limonium vulgare Miller, typical in the salt-marshes of Continental Portugal. We performed a comparative chorological, morphometric, karyological and reprodutive study between reference species L. vulgare, L. humile and L. narbonense deposited in herbaria in Spain, and herbarium specimens present Portuguese herbaria, and specimens collected along the Portuguese coast. All individuals collected or present in Portuguese herbaria inhabit in estuaries, except a population that was found on a beach (Praia da Veiga, Viana do Castelo). Roots obtained from the seeds collected in some of the individuals showed tetraploid or aneuploid tetraploid karyotypes with 2 n = 4x = 35, 36 or 38 chromosomes. Factorial correspondence analysis based on heterostyly reveal that except (Praia da Veiga, Viana do Castelo), most populations were distylic containing both the short-styled (“Thrum” flowers) and long-styled floral morphs (“Pin” flowers). Also this analysis reveal that the most frequent polen-stigma combinations present in the majority of populations were A and B, suggesting that cross-fertilization may be favored The principal component analysis allowed us to observe that vegetative traits, respectively the scape height, leaf length/width and branch angle are significantly correlated with each other. Reproductive traits like spike length, maximum distance between spikelets and bracts lenght are also correlated with each other. After discriminant analysis it was observed that most of the populations studied are mixed, with a predominance of L. narbonense and L. vulgare. Limonium humile is only present, in a small percentage, in populations of Aveiro and Tagus estuaries. The population of Praia da Veiga (Viana do Castelo), which shows proper characteristics, cannot be attributed to any of the three reference species.
This study concluded that there are two new species for the flora of continental Portugal, L. humile and L. narbonense, and suggests that individuals from Praia da Veiga (Viana do Castelo) population could be another new species to Portuguese flora
