Scaevola subalpina (Goodeniaceae), a new species from Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape, Palawan, Philippines
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Department of Forest Biological Sciences, College of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of the Philippines Los Baños, 4031, Laguna, Philippines; e-mail: [email protected] 2 Museum of Natural History, University of the Philippines Los Baños, 4031, Laguna, Philippines
Abstract. A new species, Scaevola subalpina, is described and illustrated from the subalpine forest of Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape on the island of Palawan in the Philippines. The new species is most similar to Scaevola glabra, a species endemic to the Hawaiian archipelago. Both species grow at high elevations and share solitary or few-flowered inflorescences and yellow corollas but can be differentiated by flower size and structure. The flowers of S. subalpina are much shorter, and the corolla is half open from the base (as in most other species of the genus), whereas in S. glabra the corolla is fused to form a tube that splits open in only the distal portion to form lobes. Scaevola subalpina is the only Phillippineendemic of four species of the genus that are native to the Philippines. It appears to be critically endangered. Keywords: Critically endangered, solitary flower, subalpine forest, taxonomy.
Scaevola L. is a globally distributed genus of trees and shrubs comprising about 130 species. Its center of species diversity is in Australia and across the Pacific Basin; among the eleven genera of Goodeniaceae, it is the only genus to have dispersed extensively outside of Australia (Howarth et al., 2003). The genus is typically divided into three sections based mainly on habit, fruit type, and inflorescence type. Scaevola sect. Enantiophyllum Miq. is composed of only two species, S. enantophylla and S. oppositifolia, both with fleshy fruits, opposite leaves, and vining habit (Carolin et al., 1992). Members of S. sect. Scaevola Carolin are characterized by fleshy fruits, axillary inflorescences, and the habit being often tall shrubs or trees. This section is comprised of all extra-Australian species, except for S. gracilis, S. oppositifolia, and five Australian endemics (Carolin, 1990). All the remaining species of the genus with dry exocarps and indeterminate inflorescences are placed in section Xerocarpa G.Don (Carolin et al., 1992). In the phylogenetic study of Howarth et al. (2003) Received 8 November 2019; accepted 24 July 2020; published online ___________
section Enantiophyllum appears to be monophyletic, forming a clade sister to the rest of the genus, whereas sections Scaevola and Xerocarpa were not recovered as monophyletic. Three species of Scaevola have so far been recorded from the Philippines: S. micrantha C. Presl, S. oppositifolia R.Br. and S. taccada (Gaertn.) Roxb. Scavevola oppositifolia is a climber with opposite leaf arrangement and occurs at high elevations, to 2700 m (Leenhouts, 1957); it is the only Phillipine species of section Enantiophyllum (Carolin et al., 1992). The two other species belong to section Scaevola. They are erect shrubs or small trees occurring mostly at low elevations, in the case of
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