(Stachys: Lamiaceae) from the - Botanical Research Institute of Texas

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10 Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas 5(1) at apex, the margins crenate (crenulate-serrulate), leaves spreading-ascending, upper surface prominently bullate, abundantly pubescent with appressed and erect non-glandular, pustulate-based hairs, the lower surface glabrate to softly pubescent with erect, eglandular hairs; inflorescences of interrupted verticils; bracts abruptly reduced upward from lowest fertile nodes; cymules each with 3 flowers, the verticils thus 6-flowered; fruiting calyces campanulate, the tube densely short-soft pubescent, and with longer, stiffish hairs, especially along the veins, and slightly atomiferous-glandular, tubes mostly 4mm (3.5–4.5mm) long; the lobes deltoid, narrowed apically and terminated with minute apiculum, the lobes less than one-half the length of the tube, 1.5–1.8(–2.4)mm long; corollas pink, corolla tube prominently saccate toward base on lower side, tube internally glabrous, but with prominently slanting (oblique) annulus, copiously pubescent with soft, bulbous trichomes; tube 11–14mm from base to apex of galea; galeae abundantly pubescent with stalked glands and soft eglandular hairs; lower lip with prominent dark pink (nearly purple) blotches on the median portion of the lower lip; declined to 90° from the tube, 6.5–8mm long, the middle lobe of lower lip narrowly ovate, slightly notched at apex; mericarps dark brown, minutely pebbled, 1.4–1.5mm wide, 1.8–2mm long. Additional collections examined: UNITED STATES. VIRGINIA. Amelia Co.: local in wet meadows and old fields, 5 Jul 1938, J.B. Lewis 1592 (fSu). Brunswick Co.: along wooded stream, Jun 1942, J.B. Lewis 3588 (VPi). Charlotte Co.: young floodplain forest along cargills creek, 3.5 mi e of dryburg, 14 Aug 2008, Gary P. Fleming 15453 with John F. townsend (VPi). Halifax Co.: moist swale in powerline clearing 2.2 mi Sw of Public fork, 14 Jul 1995, , Gary P. Fleming 10804 (gmuf, uSch, VPi, willi); same location, 1 Jul 1997, Gary P. Fleming 13418 (unc, uS); same location, 14 Aug 2008, John F. townsend 4061 with Gary P. Fleming (VPi); thinly wooded toe slope along Staunton river, 0.6 mi. south of uS 360 bridge and 2.3 mi. west-southwest of Public fork, 26 may 2010, Gary P. Fleming 15470 (VPi). Pittsylvania Co.: dry woodland edges (rich), 22 Jun 1963, W. hathaway s.n. (lYn); sandy bottomland, county road #608 near Pigg river, 25 Jun 1966, W. hathaway s.n. (lYn); below bridge over Staunton river on [uS] hwy 29 across from Altavista, 29 Jun 1966, G. ramsey s.n. et al. (lYn); old jeep trail in woods on west side of uS 29 bypass on south side of Staunton river, 2 river mi. upstream from Alta Vista, 30 Jul 1994, John B. nelson 16019 (gh, uSch). Surry Co.: rich alluvial woods and thickets back of sand-beach of James river, below Sunken meadow Beach, 14 Jun 1938, m.L. Fernald and B. Long 8446 (gh); thicket back of sand-beach of cobham Bay, James river, northwest of chippokes, 25 Aug 1940, m.L. Fernald and B. Long 12788 (gh); sandy river bank, southeast of claremont, 25 Jun 1950, B. mikula 5514 (fArm, willi). NORTH CAROLINA. Durham Co.: wooded pasture, northeast of durham on neuse river at co. line (Sw of cozart), 21 Aug 1965, harry e. ahles 59795 (ncu). Granville Co.: disturbed right of way, former Seaboard coastline rr bed 0.2 mi Sw of Sr 1726, 28 Jun 2006, Dale e. suiter 2505 et al. (ncu). Montgomery Co.: same location as type, 21 Jun 1978, J. matthews et al. s.n. (uncc); 16 Jun 1998, h. selvig s.n. (uSch); 23 Jun 1988, J. nelson 6733 (uSch). discussion the earliest known collections of stachys matthewsii were made by fernald and long in 1938 and 1940, during their exploration of unusual, shell-rich, calcareous bluffs and shores along the James river in the southeastern Virginia coastal Plain (fernald 1938, 1941). fernald initially determined these collections as “stachys nuttallii Shuttlew.,” but later changed his diagnosis to “stachys clingmanii Small,” (fernald 1943, 1950). confusion in the interpretation of other historical collections of s. matthewsii is also evident, and is perhaps best epitomized by J.B. lewis’ 1942 collection from Brunswick county, Virginia. this specimen was originally labeled s. tenuifolia willd., but was subsequently annotated between 1972 and 2005 as s. clingmanii Small, s. nuttallii Shuttlew. ex Benth., s. eplingii J.B.nelson, and finally, s. hispida Pursh. James matthews’ (uncc) discovery of this plant in montgomery county, north carolina arose from an inventory of unusual habitats and rare species within the uwharrie mountains region. on June 21, 1978, matthews collected two specimens of the hedge-nettle in question during a search for helenium brevifolium (nutt.) wood, along the east side of the Yadkin river just below the falls dam. the plants were considered unusual and tentatively identified as stachys riddellii house (= s. cordata riddell). nelson (then at fSu) was alerted to the presence of this unusual hedge-nettle by matthews in 1979, and driven to the population for some observations. he later made trips to the same spot, again accompanied by matthews, in 1988 and 1998. Between 1994 and 2008, new populations and/or herbarium specimens from four additional counties in south-central Virginia were located by nelson, fleming, and townsend. conflicting determinations of historical specimens of stachys matthewsii can be partly explained by the incomplete and evolving treatments of stachys during the mid-20th century, and partly by the lack of any
Fleming et al., A new species of Stachys from the southeastern United States 11 available key or description that would account for the particular combination of characters that are diagnostic of the taxon. in recent decades, interpretation of the genus has become more stable, with circumscriptions of native southeastern species generally based on combinations of three character-groups: relative petiole length, shape and relative length of the calyx lobes, and distribution and type of stem pubescence (nelson 1981; mulligan & munro 1989). stachys matthewsii is characterized by the combination of short petioles, short triangular-apiculate calyx lobes, and copious pubescence restricted to the stem angles (figs. 2, 3, and 5). this taxon was not clearly recognized in any treatment until that by nelson (1981), who maintained it within s. nuttallii (= s. cordata) as a short-petioled variant, disjunct from the rest of the range. current treatments of the nutallii-cordata group, however, distinguish its members not only by their long-petioled leaves but also by the presence of hairs on the stem sides and their musky-scented, atomiferous-glandular foliage (nelson 2008), all characters absent in s. matthewsii. contemporary interpretation of s. clingmanii as a longer-petioled, high-elevation plant of the southern Appalachians has rendered fernald’s view of the Surry county hedge-nettles both taxonomically erroneous and phytogeographically improbable (nelson 1981; gleason & cronquist 1991). the treatment by mulligan and munro (1989) would place the collections of this taxon within s. latidens Small. Annotations of the holotype and one paratype of stachys matthewsii (nelson 6733), supplied by g.A. mulligan in 1990, read “stachys latidens Small, very close to”; the holotype additionally bears mulligan’s note “angles long erect hairs.” like s. matthewsii, s. latidens has short petioles and short deltoid calyx lobes. however, it is a relatively smooth plant with only scattered, pustulate, short-deflexed hairs on the stem angles. Additionally, the bearded nodes and abundant, prominently spreading, multicellular hairs of s. matthewsii will consistently separate it from s. latidens. moreover, the two species have allopatric distributions and disparate ecological affiliations, with s. latidens a plant of higher-elevation forests and clearings in the Blue ridge and s. matthewsii a plant of low-elevation clearings and edges in the Piedmont and coastal Plain. this geographic and ecological separation of s. matthewsii and s. latidens would seem to preclude any biological interaction between the two taxa at present. other species, such as s. hispida and s. tenuifolia, are occasionally found sympatrically with s. matthewsii, but no intermediates have been seen to suggest any current gene exchange among members of the group. the type of multicellular pubescence seen in s. matthewsii could possibly indicate some past kinship with s. hispida, although the distribution and density of these pustular-based, multicellular hairs is distinctly different in the two taxa. Specifically, s. hispida is more or less uniformly hispid with a moderate to somewhat dense concentration of hairs along the stem, whereas those of s. matthewsii are only moderately dense above but rapidly become very densely concentrated in the proximal 3–4 nodes and internodes. without a molecular framework for placing the various species of stachys, such morphological and ecological evidence will remain the most practical tools for recognizing new taxa in this complex genus. the population at the type locality is near the margin of the Yadkin river, at the narrows just below (and within sight of) the falls dam, east of the town of Badin. the plants grow in considerable shade on sandy, loamy ground, with the population best developed on a somewhat sandy ridge. the site is probably best considered an occasionally flooded-scoured river levee complex. Associated species include Liriodendron tulipifera l., Pinus echinata mill., Liquidambar styraciflua l., Quercus nigra l., robinia pseudoacacia l., albizia julibrissin durazz., sassafras albidum (nutt.) nees, alnus serrulata (Aiton) willd., amorpha fruticosa l., Parthenocissus quinquefolia (l.) Planch., apios americana medik., Vitis rotundifolia michx., and asplenium platyneuron (l.) Britton, Sterns, & Poggenb., all of which are locally common and hardly indicating special or unusual habitats. Subsequent study of populations and collections from Virginia demonstrate a wider distribution (fig. 4). most Virginia populations occur either along streams or in low, seasonally damp swales. habitats could generally be considered mundane, except for those of the Surry county populations, which occupy calcareous open swales and forest edges along shell-laden shores of the James river. repeated observations of populations in halifax and charlotte counties indicate that s. matthewsii is quite shade-intolerant and not very
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(Stachys: Lamiaceae) from the - Botanical Research Institute of Texas

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