Taxonomical identity of "Sarcocornia fruticosa" and "S. hispanica" in the Iberian Peninsula
- Ana Guilló Recuerda 1
- María Ángeles Alonso Vargas 1
- María Lucía Lendínez 2
- Carlos Salazar Mendía 2
- Ana Juan Gallardo 1
- 1 Instituto de la Biodiversidad-CIBIO. Universidad de Alicante
- 2 Dpto. Biología Animal, Biología Vegetal y Ecología. Universidad de Jaén
ISSN: 0211-1322
Year of publication: 2014
Volume: 71
Issue: 2
Type: Article
More publications in: Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid
Metrics
Cited by
JCR (Journal Impact Factor)
- Year 2014
- Journal Impact Factor: 0.676
- Journal Impact Factor without self cites: 0.676
- Article influence score: 0.247
- Best Quartile: Q4
- Area: PLANT SCIENCES Quartile: Q4 Rank in area: 157/204 (Ranking edition: SCIE)
SCImago Journal Rank
- Year 2014
- SJR Journal Impact: 0.373
- Best Quartile: Q3
- Area: Plant Science Quartile: Q3 Rank in area: 207/441
- Area: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Quartile: Q3 Rank in area: 370/608
Scopus CiteScore
- Year 2014
- CiteScore of the Journal : 1.4
- Area: Plant Science Percentile: 45
- Area: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Percentile: 34
Abstract
The recent description of Sarcocornia hispanica, from SE Iberian Peninsula evidences the notable morphological complexity of this genus. This species is quite close to S. fruticosa, as they both show an erect habit and lack of rooting stems. Besides, S. fruticosa has been traditionally recorded for the same geographical area of S. hispanica. However, the original description of S. hispanica did not include any mention about these two taxa would live together and which ones are the differential morphological characters. Our study aims to clarify their main morphological differences and to address two questions. Firstly, if two close species would be coexisting or secondly, if both species would not live together and then only one erect shrubby species should be recognised for the southeastern peninsular. Therefore, a detailed morphological study of these two species was carried out using vegetative and reproductive characters together with SEM features. Based on the original description, the main morphological features of S. hispanica were compared, plus other features which would support their identification. Our data pointed out the existence of a marked overlapping for most of the studied characters independently of the geographical procedence of the samples. As a result, no significant morphological differences have been found between both taxa, and S. hispanica is proposed as a mere synonym of S. fruticosa.