Muehlbergella Explained

Muehlbergella is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae. It contains a single species, Muehlbergella oweriniana. It is critically endangered

Distribution

The species is endemic to an area of ~40 km² in Dagestan, North Caucasus, where it grows between cracks and calcareous rocky ground.^[1]

Taxonomy

The genus and species were both described by Heinrich Feer and published in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie Vol.12 (Issue 5) on pages 615–616 in 1890.^[2]

The genus name of Muehlbergella is in honour of Friedrich Mühlberg (1840–1915), a Swiss geologist.^[3] The Latin specific epithet of oweriniana refers to the original collector, Alexander Pavlovic Owerin, a Russian military topographer, florist, and botanical collector. Owerin had collected plants from the mountains of Dagestan (1860–61) and other places in the Caucasus.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Catalogue of Life - 2010 Annual Checklist :: Species details. www.catalogueoflife.org.
2. Web site: Muehlbergella Feer Plants of the World Online Kew Science . Plants of the World Online . 22 May 2021 . en.
3. Book: Burkhardt, Lotte . Verzeichnis eponymischer Pflanzennamen – Erweiterte Edition . Index of Eponymic Plant Names – Extended Edition . Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Freie Universität Berlin . 2018 . 978-3-946292-26-5 . pdf . German . Berlin . 10.3372/epolist2018 . 187926901 . 1 January 2021.
4. Eddie . Bill . What's in a Name? The Introduction of Muehlbergella oweriniana to Cultivation and the Recognition of Monotypic Genera. . The Rock Garden . 2018 . 140 . 62–65.