Costularia Explained
Costularia is a plant genus in the family Cyperaceae.[1] [2] [3] [4] It includes 15 species native to southeastern Africa, ranging from South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Provinces) through Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, and to the islands Madagascar, Réunion, and the Seychelles in the Western Indian Ocean.[5]
The genus was formerly circumscribed to include 25 species. A molecular phylogenetic study found that circumscription to include four distinct lineages:
- Costularia s.s. (11 species) from Africa, Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands and Seychelles.
- Chamaedendron (five species) from New Caledonia.
- a group largely conforming to subgenus Lophoschoenus (eight species) from New Caledonia and Malesia that are now considered to be part of a redelimited genus Tetraria.
- the species Xyroschoenus hornei, which is endemic to the Seychelles.
In 2019, the genus was revised to include 15 species, generally corresponding to Costularia s.s. and including a few previously undescribed species.[5]
List of species
15 species are accepted:
Formerly placed here
Xyroschoenus hornei (as Costularia hornei (C.B.Clarke) Kük.)
Notes and References
- http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?name_id=233618 Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
- Govaerts, R. & Simpson, D.A. (2007). World Checklist of Cyperaceae. Sedges: 1-765. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
- Hoenselaar, K., Verdcourt, B. & Beentje, H. (2010). Cyperaceae. Flora of Tropical East Africa: 1-466.
- Strugnell, A.M. (2006). A checklist of the Spermatophytes of Mt. Mulanje, Malawi. Scripta Botanica Belgica 34: 1-199.
- Larridon I, Rabarivola L, Xanthos M, Muasya AM. 2019. Revision of the Afro-Madagascan genus Costularia (Schoeneae, Cyperaceae): infrageneric relationships and species delimitation. PeerJ 7:e6528 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6528
