Taxonomic study on Japanese Salvia (Lamiaceae): Phylogenetic position of S.akiensis, and polyphyletic nature of S.lutescensvar.intermedia

摘要

Both Salviaakiensis and S.lutescens (Lamiaceae) are endemic to Japan. Salviaakiensis was recently described in 2014 in the Chugoku (= SW Honshu) region, and each four varieties of S.lutescens distributed allopatrically. Among varieties in S.lutescens, var. intermedia show a disjunctive distribution in the Kanto (=E Honshu) and Kinki (= W Honshu) regions. Recent field studies of S.lutescensvar.intermedia revealed several morphological differences between the Kanto and Kinki populations. Here, I evaluated these differences among Salvialutescensvar.intermedia and its allies with morphological analysis and molecular phylogenetic analyses of nuclear ribosomal DNA (internal and external transcribed spacer regions) and plastid DNA (ycf1-rps15 spacer, rbcL, and trnL-F) sequences. Both morphological analysis and molecular phylogenetic analyses showed that S.lutescensvar.intermedia from the Kinki region and var. lutescens were closely related to each other. However, var. intermedia from the Kanto region exhibited an association with S.lutescensvar.crenata and var. stolonifera, which also grew in eastern Japan, rather than var. intermedia in the Kinki region. These results indicated that S.lutescensvar.intermedia is not a taxon with a disjunctive distribution, but a combination of two or more allopatric taxa. Present study also suggested that S.akiensis was most closely related to S.omerocalyx.