Description of five new species of the Madagascan flagship plant genus Ravenala (Strelitziaceae).
Name
s41598-021-01161-1.pdf
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6.17 MB
Format
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Resource type
Journal article
Date published
November 9, 2021
Abstract
Madagascar’s emblematic traveller’s tree is a monospecific genus within Strelitziaceae, the family of the South African bird of paradise. Until now, this endemic genus consisted of a single species: Sonn., which is grown everywhere in the tropics as an ornamental plant. The plant is immediately recognizable for its huge fan-forming banana-like leaves and is locally referred to in Magagascar by several vernacular names. “Variants” have been mentioned in the literature, but without any attempt to recognize formal taxa based on diagnostic features. In this paper, we formally describe five new species and fix the application of the name to the populations growing on the eastern coast of Madagascar, with the epitype growing in the marshy Fort-Dauphin area in the south. This paper has numerous implications for conservation biology and other domains of life sciences, due to the importance of this genus for the conservation of Madagascan ecosystems, the ornamental plant trade, as well as for its invasive status in several tropical areas.
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Fondation Franklinia, Switzrland | |
Nomade Aventure, France | |
Société des Explorateurs Français, France | |
Journal title
Scientific Reports
Volume
11
Article number
21965
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Place of publication
Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany
eISSN
2045-2322
Date accepted
October 25, 2021
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright