Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 July 2023 | 15(7): 23627–23630

 

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) 

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8196.15.7.23627-23630

#8196 | Received 16 September 2022 | Final received 15 June 2023 | Finally accepted 28 June 2023

 

Argyreia lawii C.B.Clarke (Convolvulaceae) – an extended distribution record in the Western Ghats of Kerala

 

A. Raja Rajeswari 1 & M.K. Nisha 2

 

1,2 Department of Botany, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641043, India. 

1 forraji98@gmail.com, 2 nisha_bot@avinuty.ac.in (corresponding author)

 

 

Editor: Anonymity requested.            Date of publication: 26 July 2023 (online & print)

 

Citation: Rajeswari A.R. &  M.K. Nisha (2023). Argyreia lawii C.B.Clarke (Convolvulaceae) – an extended distribution record in the Western Ghats of Kerala. Journal of Threatened Taxa 15(7): 23627–23630. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8196.15.7.23627-23630

 

Copyright: © Rajeswari & Nisha 2023. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

 

Funding: None.

 

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: The authors are thankful to the head of office, Botanical Survey of India, Southern Regional Centre, Coimbatore for permitting us to consult the herbaria and library.

 

 

Argyreia Lour. is considered to be one of the largest and complex genus among the family Convolvulaceae. It consists of around 135 taxa (Staples & Traiperm 2017) distributed in southeastern Asia, China, and in the Indian subcontinent. In India, the genus is represented with 40 species and considered to be the second most species abundant genus among Convolvulaceae (Lawand et al. 2019).

During the floristic survey in Attappady area at Palakkad District, Kerala, collected an interesting species of Argyreia at a specific location along the way of Thavalam, an area 18 km away from Silent Valley which comes under wet evergreen forest. The specimen was collected with flowers and the identity was confirmed as A. lawii by Botanical Survey of India (BSI), Southern Regional Centre (SRC), Coimbatore. The sample specimen was stored in Avinashilingam Institute Herbarium, for further use. While checking for the distribution of the species it is previously known only from Karnataka (Gamble 1922), recently rediscovered from Maharashtra (Lawand et al. 2019) and Shalini et al. (2018) added to the flora of Tamil Nadu. Other than this it is not reported anywhere else in India including Kerala (Kumar et al. 2005; Nayar et al. 2014; Eflorakerala). Hence the present collection from Palakkad District of Kerala shows the extended distribution of the species and addition to the state flora as well. A short description along with color photographs are provided here to facilitate the future identification and collection (Images 1 & 2).

Argyreia lawii C.B.Clarke in Hook.f., Fl. Brit. India 4: 190. 1883; T.Cooke, Fl. Bombay 2: 327. 1908; Gamble, Fl. Pres. Madras 2: 908. 1922; B.D.Sharma et al., Fl. Karnataka 179. 1984; M.R.Almeida, Fl. Maharashtra 3: 310. 2001; Venakanna & Das in N.P.Singh et al., Fl. Maharashtra 2: 445. 2001; Shalini et al., Indian J. Forest. 41(3): 265–268. 2018.

 

Description

A semi-woody climber, the stem is strigose, terete, greenish, and herbaceous. Leaves simple, alternate, and elliptic-ovate, 6–10.2 x 3–5.5 cm, base rounded, acute apex, and entire margin. Strigose on both the surface, midrib conspicuous with lateral veins 7–8 pairs. Petiole is about 1.7–3.8 cm, cylindrical, strigose, stout, and wooly. Inflorescence is an axillary cyme compacted with 5–7 flowers, dichotomously branched with one central flower. Peduncle 3–6 cm long, longer than petiole, terete, and less strigose. Flowers sub-sessile, bracteate, whorls slightly strigose, inner whorl narrows than the outer and oblong. Bracts oblong or elliptical 1–2.7 cm x 0.4–0.8 cm, strigose, outer bracts are wider than the inner ones. Sepals 5, subequal shorter than bracts 8–10 x 5–6 mm, ovate, and acute apex, glabrous to pubescent, gamosepalous. Corolla infundibulum 3.5–4.7 cm x 1.8–2.8, hairy, disc slightly 5-lobed. Stamens 5; filaments 5, unequal, 2 long 1.6–1.8 cm, 3 short 1–1.2 cm, adnate, above the base of the corolla. Ovary conical, glabrous, style, separately dilated, jointed at base longer than filament 1.4–1.9 cm or sometimes unequal. Stigma papillated and bilobed. Fruit is a berry with 5 persistent calyx lobes, young green, when matured yellow.

Flowering and Fruiting: May to August.

Habitat and ecology: Twining shrub along roadside margins of wet evergreen forest at an elevation of 662 m growing in association with species like Asystasia gangetica (L.) T.Anderson, Cardiospermum halicacabum L., Causonis trifolia (L.) Mabb. & J.Wen, Chromolaena odorata (L.) R.M.King & H.Rob., Justicia adhatoda L., Lantana camara L., Mesosphaerum suaveolens (L.) Kuntze, Mimosa pudica L., Oplismenus compositus (L.) P.Beauv., Parthenium hysterophorus L., and Rotheca serrata (L.) Steane & Mabb. We could observe 12–15 mature individuals covering the total area that may not exceed 5 km2.

Distribution: Karnataka (Western Ghats region, Konkan Province & Bababudhan Hills of Karnataka State), Kerala (Present report – Thavalam, Palakkad District), Maharashtra (Bhudargad Fort & Patgaon, Kolhapur District), and Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris District, Coonoor Ghat).

Specimen examined: India, Kerala, Palakkad District; Thavalam, 13.1200N, 76.5910E, 22.08.2022, A. Raja Rajeswari ARR0001, Avinashilingam Institute Herbarium (Image 3).

Notes: Argyreia lawii C.B.Clarke may be facing threats due to the widening of road, domination of exotic plants, removal of plants along the road side and cultivated fields by the local community in Thavalam area.

 

For figure & images - - click here for full PDF

 

References

 

Almeida, M.R. (2001). Flora of Maharashtra (Rubiaceae to Ehretiaceae). Volume 3a. St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

Clarke, C.B. (1883). Convolvulaceae. In: Hooker, J.D. (ed.) Flora of British India: Vol. 4. L. Reeve and Co., London, 190 pp.

Cooke, T. (1908). Flora of the Presidency of Bombay Vol. 2. Taylor and Francis, London, 257 pp.

Eflorakerala. https://www.eflorakerala.com - Genus. Accessed on 10 January 2023.

Gamble, J.S. (1922). Flora of the Presidency of Madras. Part V. (Rep. 2004). Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, Dehradun.

Kumar, N.A., M. Sivadasan & N. Ravi (2005). Flora of Pathanamthitta (Western Ghats, Kerala, India). Daya Publishing House, Delhi.

Lawand, P.R., R.V. Gurav & V.B. Shimpale (2019). Rediscovery, after over a century, of the endemic climbing vine Argyreia lawii (Convolvulaceae) from the Western Ghats of India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(14): 14917–14920. https://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4419.11.14.14917–14920

Nayar, T.S., A.R. Beegam & M. Sibi (2014). Flowering plants of The Western Ghats India. Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram. Convolvulaceae.

Shalini, S., P. Lakshminarasimhan & D. Maity (2018). Argyreia lawii (Convolvulaceae), an addition to the flora of Tamil Nadu. Indian Journal of Forestry 41(3): 265–268.

Sharma, B.D. (1984). Flora of Karnataka. Botanical Survey of India, Calcutta.

Staples, G. & P. Traiperm (2017). A nomenclatural review of Argyreia (Convolvulaceae). Taxon 66(2): 445–477.

Venkanna, P. & S.K. Das (2001). Convolvulaceae, pp. 439–448. In: Singh, N.P., P. Lakshminarsimhan, S. Karthikeyan & P.V. Prasanna (eds.). Flora of Maharashtra State. Volume 2. Botanical Survey of India, Kolkata.