Plantae Rosales Rosaceae Boza EspinozaTatiana ErikaKesslerMichaelA monograph of the genus Polylepis (Rosaceae)PhytoKeys01082022203127410.3897/phytokeys.203.83529 49BD39C3-A6B2-5CCE-A160-8CDE39F57E95 Australes urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77301642-1 T.Boza & M.Kesslersect.nov.Diagnosis.

Trees, 2–4 lateral leaflet pairs; lower leaflet surfaces glabrous, sparsely hispid or puberulous; fruits with irregular and pronounced wings, glabrous or sparsely hispid.

Type.

Polylepisaustralis Bitter.

Notes.

The sectional epithet Australes is a plural adjective agreeing in gender with Polylepis. Section Australes contains two species with glabrous leaflet surfaces, 2–4 lateral leaflet pairs and winged fruits. Especially the latter are unique in Polylepis and justify placing the two species in a section of its own. Table 6 provides an overview of the arrangement of the taxa by different authors.

Alignment of the taxa of the Polylepissect.Australes according to Bitter (1911), Simpson (1979), Segovia et al. (2018) and the present study.

Bitter (1911) Simpson (1979) Segovia et al. (2018) This study
P.australis P.australis P.australis P.australis
—— P.neglecta P.neglecta
Climatic niches in <tp:taxon-name><tp:taxon-name-part taxon-name-part-type="genus" reg="Polylepis">Polylepis</tp:taxon-name-part><tp:taxon-name-part taxon-name-part-type="infraspecific-rank">sect.</tp:taxon-name-part><tp:taxon-name-part taxon-name-part-type="section" reg="Australes">Australes</tp:taxon-name-part></tp:taxon-name>

The climatic niches of the two species are quite similar, but P.australis grows in slightly warmer and substantially wetter areas than P.neglecta (Fig. 62). In addition, being the southernmost species of the genus, P.australis grows in a strongly seasonal climate with warm summers and cold winters, which is unique in the genus.

10.3897/phytokeys.203.83529.figure62E6D76BF7-7DB3-56CC-83A5-AC45F85764DB

Box plots showing the climatic niches of the species of the subsections Australes and Subsericantes in relation to MAT (A) and MAP (B). See Fig. 12 for details on data presentation.

https://binary.pensoft.net/fig/72137910.3897/phytokeys.203.83529.figure124BE58B9D-2FF5-56FF-BA82-DD8457B8AA84

Box plots showing the climatic niches of the species of the subsections Lanuginosae, Pauta and Pepea in relation to Mean Annual Temperature (MAT) (A) and Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP) (B). The ends of each box represent the upper and lower quartiles and the median is indicated with a bold line inside the box; the whisker lines extend to the highest and lowest observations, except when observations are higher or lower than the interquartile range (i.e. outliers), in which case they are indicated by a dot. Box plots that share the same lowercase letters within each subsection are not significantly different at p = 0.05. Vertical lines represent subsectional divisions.

https://binary.pensoft.net/fig/721329BitterG (1911) Revision der Gattung Polylepis. Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik 45: 564–656.SimpsonBB (1979) A revision of the genus Polylepis (Rosaceae: Sanguisorbeae).Smithsonian Contributions to Botany43(43): 1–62. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.0081024X.43.1Segovia-SalcedoMCDomicABozaTEKesslerM (2018) Situación taxonómica de las especies del género Polylepis. Implicancias para los estudios ecológicos, la conservación y la restauración de sus bosques. Ecología Austral 28(1bis): 188–201. https://doi.org/10.25260/EA.18.28.1.1.527