Dörte Harpke

Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research · Department Genebank

Crocus series Scardici has only two members, C. scardicus and C. pelistericus distributed at higher elevations in the Balkan Peninsula. In the course of our research, we discovered two new species growing on alpine meadows and pastures in the serpentine massifs in Albania and limestones in North Macedonia, respectively. The morphology and phylogene...

Among the fascinating and highly specialized vascular plants in the hyperarid core of the Chilean and Peruvian Atacama Desert there are few Tillandsia species from the bromeliad family (Bromeliaceae). These grow epiarenically on bare sand without a functional root system, and in some rare cases they build up a monospecific and often the only landsc...

In this article we present the new species Crocus cobbii from the northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula. The definition of Crocus cobbii is based on molecular and detailed morphological findings, including the molecular examination and morphological revision of its four relatives, C. nudiflorus , C. clusii , C. salzmannii , and C. serotinus ....

Increasing evidence indicates that wide distributed bryophyte taxa with homogeneous morphology may represent separate evolutionary lineages. The evolutionary histories of these cryptic lineages may be related to historical factors, such as the climatic oscillations in the Quaternary. Thus, the post-glacial demographic signatures paired with cryptic...

The post-Miocene climatic histories of arid environments have been identified as key drivers of dispersal and diversification. Here, we investigate how climatic history correlates with the historical biogeography of the Atacama Desert genus Cristaria (Malvaceae). We analyze phylogenetic relationships and historical biogeography by using next-genera...

Saffron crocus ( Crocus sativus ) is a male-sterile, triploid flower crop, and source of the spice and colorant saffron. For over three millennia, it was cultivated across the Mediterranean, including ancient Greece, Persia, and other cultures, later spreading all over the world. Despite saffron crocus’ early omnipresence, its origin has been the m...

Drylands count among the most globally extensive biomes, and while many desert and dry rangeland ecosystems are under threat, genetic structures of dryland species are still rarely studied. Artemisia frigida is one of the most widely distributed plant species in the temperate rangelands of Eurasia and North America, and it also dominates in many ha...

Artemisia frigida is a temperate grassland species that has the largest natural range among its genus, with occurrences across the temperate grassland biomes of Eurasia and North America. Despite its wide geographic range, we know little about the species’ distribution history. Hence, we conducted a phylogeographical study to test the hypothesis th...

A Crocus population in the Northern Albanian Alps obviously belonging to C. ser. Verni was referred to C. heuffelianus, but closer field investigations revealed that it could not be identified with this or any other Verni species. The detailed description of a new species, Crocus bertiscensis, including morphology, leaf anatomy, cytology, and phylo...

Crocus asymmetricus (Iridaceae) is described as a new species endemic to the southern part of the Anatolian diagonal in Turkey. It is phylogenetically related to C. vitellinus and morphologically to C. antalyensis, but differs from these species in showing an asymmetric corm and a single point of root emergence. Both C. antalyensis and C. asymmetri...

Poor morphological and molecular differentiation in recently diversified lineages is a widespread phenomenon in plants. Phylogenetic relationships within such species complexes are often difficult to resolve because of the low variability in traditional molecular loci. Furthermore, biological phenomena responsible for topological incongruence such...

In hyper-arid habitats vegetation tends to be highly patchy with individual plant populations set widely apart from each other. In the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, rainfall is essentially absent, but fog occurring both at the coast and sometimes reaching inland areas supports patches of vegetation in an otherwise barren environment. Tillandsia...

Crocus terzioghluii (Iridaceae) is described as a new species endemic to southwestern Anatolia, Turkey. It is related to Crocus babadagensis and differs from this species in having corm tunics with well-developed rings, and prominent stripes on outer segments, as well as in leaf number and flowering time. The corms and tunics of both species are il...

The Mediterranean basin as secondary speciation centre of Gagea ANGELA PETERSON1 & DOERTE HARPKE2 1Institute of Biology, Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, Weinbergweg 10, D-06120 Halle (Saale), Germany: E-mail: angela.peterson@biodidaktik.uni-halle.de 2Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), OT Gatersleben,...

Balsamocarpon brevifolium Clos (Fabaceae), an endangered endemic shrub of the Chilean Atacama Desert, nowadays occurs in fragmented populations, which are exploit since at least 200 years. Understanding its genetic diversity, population structure and distribution patterns are essential for conservation planning and sustainable management. Based on...

Premise: Microsatellite markers were developed for Xerophyta dasylirioides (Velloziaceae), a species endemic to the Malagasy inselbergs, to explore the impact of its island-like distribution on genetic diversity and gene flow. Methods and results: A total of 7110 perfect microsatellite loci were recovered by shotgun sequencing on an Illumina MiS...

By confirming that Crocus adamii sensu lato can’t be found western from the Anatolian Diagonal, the recent studies put the presence of C. adamii in Serbia under question. Consequently, the new species from Tupižnica, Serbia was described as C. randjeloviciorum. This work represents an extension of C. randjeloviciorum investigation, with the aim to...

The Irano‐Turanian (IT) floristic region is considered an important centre of origin for many taxa. However, there is a lack of studies dealing with typical IT genera that also occur in neighbouring areas. The species-rich monocot genus Gagea Salisb. shows a centre of diversity in IT region and a distribution in adjacent regions, therefore represen...

Crocus sativus, the saffron crocus, is the source of saffron, which is made from the dried stigmas of the plant. It is a male-sterile triploid lineage that ever since its origin has been propagated vegetatively. Its mode of evolution and area of origin are matters of long-lasting debates. Here we analyzed chloroplast genomes and genome-wide DNA pol...

Crocus sativus is the source of saffron, which is made from dried stigmas of the plant. It is a male-sterile triploid that ever since its origin has been propagated vegetatively. The mode of evolution and area of origin of saffron are matters of long-lasting debates. Here we analyzed chloroplast genomes, genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) data, nuclear...

Poor morphological and molecular differentiation in recently diversified lineages is a widespread phenomenon in plants. Phylogenetic relationships within such species complexes are often difficult to resolve because of the low variability in traditional molecular loci, as well as various other biological phenomena responsible for topological incong...

Poor morphological and molecular differentiation in recently diversified lineages is a widespread phenomenon in plants. Phylogenetic relationships within such species complexes are often difficult to resolve because of the low variability in traditional molecular loci, as well as various other biological phenomena responsible for topological incong...

Crocus heuffelianus Herb. belongs to series Verni Mathew and presents one of the most complex and critical taxa within the whole genus Crocus L. It is dispersed on lower slopes of the mountains in the east Austria throughout the Balkan Peninsula with the southern limit in Albania, and up to Romania and Ukraine in the east and Poland as the northern...

Saffron, Crocus sativus, is known as the most expensive spice by weight worldwide. It is a clonally propagated, male-sterile triploid that has advantages in maintaining the genetic characteristics of the plants but sterility simultaneously impedes any breeding advances by genetic improvement through crossing of different genotypes. To trace the evo...

Series Verni represents one of the taxonomically most complex series in the genus Crocus. It comprises six taxa: the Crocus vernus aggregate (split into five species – Crocus vernus, C. neapolitanus, C. neglectus, C. siculus, C .heuffelianus), C. ilvensis, C. etruscus, C. kosaninii, C. tommasinianus and C. longiflorus. This study included 160 speci...

The Italian endemic Crocus biflorus usually shows white or lilac flowers with three-to-five striking violet longitudinal stripes on the outer tepals, but unstriped plants were recorded in the past. These plants were originally described as C. annulatus subvar. estriatus, and subsequently recombined as a variety of C. biflorus. The rediscovery of su...

Phylogenetic relationships among the taxa of Crocus series Crocus are still unclear, preventing the understanding of species diversity and the evolution of the important spice saffron (Crocus sativus). Therefore, we analyzed sequences of two chloroplast (trnL-trnF, matK-trnK) and three nuclear (TOPO6, ribosomal DNA ETS and ITS) marker regions to in...

Recent research within the genus Crocus (Iridaceae) let us doubt that Crocus adamii Gay from Serbia represents the same taxon as C. adamii s. str. of the locus classicus in the Caucasian Mountains. The latter belongs to a group of crocuses, which is distributed from the Anatolian Diagonal, a mountain belt in inner Anatolia, to Iran and the Caucasia...

Cistanthe longiscapa is an endemic annual herb and characteristic element of the Chilean Atacama Desert. Principal threats are the destruction of its seed deposits by human activities and reduced germination rates due to the decreasing occurrence of precipitation events. To enable population genetic and phylogeographic analyses in this species we p...

In this contribution new data concerning the distribution of native vascular flora in Italy are presented It includes new records, exclusions, and confirmations to the Italian administrative regions for taxa in the genera Asplenium, Bolboschoenus, Botrychium, Chamaerops, Crocus, Galeopsis, Grafia, Helosciadium Hieracium, Juniperus, Leucanthemum,...

Crocus heilbronniorum is described as a new species from Fethiye, Muğla province (SW Turkey). Diagnostic morphological characters, a full description and detailed illustrations are provided based on the type specimen and wild specimens. Morphologically, C. heilbronniorum is close to Crocus atrospermus, but the newly described species differs by its...

The most important center of speciation in the genus Gagea is thought to be in Central Asia. Here, we focus on species diversity in southeastern Kazakhstan (around Almaty, Ili-Alatau range of the Western Tian-Shan mountains). We studied an elevational transect, reaching from lowland steppes to the alpine zone (500–2750 m a. s. l.), and carried out...

Crocus veluchensis Herb • Taxonomy: Within Crocus (ca. 200 species) it belongs to the currently taxonomical unplaced C. sieberi complex [1] • Distribution: Balkan Peninsula above 1000 m elevation • Morphologically highly variable species, often different types within the same population occur (Fig. 1) • Chromosome numbers: 2n = 20, 24, 26, 46 • In...

The species-rich genus Gagea Salisb. (Liliaceae) comprising about 300 species is taxonomical complicated for several reasons. Disentangling species relationships and determining species boundaries is challenging, because of ongoing hybridization and often only possible by thorough morphological as well as molecular investigations using maternal inh...

Hybridization and geographical isolation s eems to play an important role in the evolution of the species rich (about 60 species) Eurasian Gagea sect. Gagea. Hence, disentangling species relationships and determining species borders is challenging and often only possible by thoroughly morphological investigations of plants from all life stages as w...

Crocus veluchensis Herb. is an endemic species with a wide distribution on Balkan Peninsula. Inter-population differentiation of the species C. veluchensis was analyzed on the basis on morpho-anatomical variability of its four populations from Serbia (Kopaonik Mt., Stara Mt., Šar Mt., Vlasina) and two populatons from Greece (Smolika Mt., Velouchi M...

A new Crocus species (Iridaceae) for southern Albania, Crocus novicii sp. nov. (Iridaceae), is described and illustrated. We here provide diagnostic morphological characteristics, results of molecular analyses, detailed descriptions and illustrations of this new species and compare it with its relatives C. jablanicensis, C. cvijicii and C. veluchen...

Recent phylogenetic investigations on the genus Crocus proved several infra-generic units predominantly within section Nudiscapus to be para- or polyphyletic even at infra-specific level. In particular, the 23 “subspecies” of C. biflorus Mill. turned out to be polyphyletic grouping in very different phylogenetic clades and sub-groups. In addition,...

Most flowers display distinct colour patterns comprising two different areas. The peripheral large-area component of floral colour patterns attracts flower visitors from some distance and the central small-area component guides flower visitors towards landing sites. Whereas the peripheral colour is largely variable among species, the central colour...

List of 106 species of Crocus studied. The list indicates the perigone colour in 4 categories, the style length in relation to the perigone length, the stamen length in relation to the perigone length, the style length in relation to the stamen length, and floral characteristics like branched styles and colour of stamens and styles. For comparison,...

Crocus musagecitii is described as a new species. Diagnostic morphological characters, a full description and detailed illustrations are provided on the basis of the type specimen and wild specimens. Morphologically, C. musagecitii is close to Crocus biflorus subsp. pseudonubigena. Crocus musagecitii differs from C. biflorus subsp. pseudonubigena b...

The taxonomically complicated Crocus series Verni is characterized by high intra- and interspecific variability of karyotypes (2n = 8 to 23). With the aim to get more insights into complex karyotype evolution and to clarify the taxonomy of this group we combined morphological (twelve characters), molecular (chloroplast DNA: trnL-trnF, ndhF; nuclear...

Recent phylogenetic analyses proved several infrageneric units within the genus Crocus to be para- or polyphyletic. In an attempt to arrive at a system of Crocus that closely reflects species relationships, we provide here phylogenetic, morphometric, geographic, and nomenclatorial data for the species of a narrower-defined, monophyletic Crocus seri...

Recent phylogenetic analyses proved several infrageneric units within the genus Crocus to be para- or polyphyletic. In an attempt to arrive at a system of Crocus that closely reflects species relationships, we provide here phylogenetic, morphometric, geographic and nomenclatorial data for the species of a narrower defined, monophyletic Crocus serie...

In the course of our research on Turkish crocuses in areas of the Anatolian Diagonal (central east Turkey) a new understanding of the genus Crocus was received. Phenotypic and morphological parameters were used for comparison purposes, as well as geographical distributions of genetic groupings. Eleven new species were found and are described.

The genus Gagea Salisb. is the largest amongst Liliaceae, including 50–300 species. This genus can be subdivided into at least 14 sections: among them, there is the species-rich, relatively late-branching monophyletic sect. Didymobulbos. Most of species and putative hybrids within this section were included in this study for a total of about 148 ac...

The typification of the name Gagea brentae Evers (a lectotype in GZU is designated here) and studies of living topotype material, led us to conclude that G. brentae is a full synonym of G. fragifera, sharing morphological, karyological (2n=84) and molecular (ITS region, trnLtrnF IGS, psbAtrnH IGS) features with the latter species. Gagea fragifera,...

A new region of speciation for the genus Gagea (Liliaceae) was investigated (Bogda-Shan and Urumqi; northwestern Xinjiang, China). Two species were recorded as new for the region (G. rufidula, G. davlianidzeae); three species are described as new to science (G. angelae, G. jensii and G. huochengensis). The description of G. nigra is emendated. Sequ...

Gagea bohemica s.l. (Liliaceae) consists of two morphologically extreme forms (saxatilis and bohemica) which depending on the varying opinions of the authors are considered as separate species, subspecies or as a single variable species. In this study, morphological (form and length of perianth segments, pilosity of pedicles and peduncles) and mole...

Hybridization seems to play an important role in speciation of Gagea Salisb., a genus which is characterised by polyploid taxa lines and in which diploids (2n=24) appear only to be common in basal sections. Hybrid detection was applied utilising direct and cloning nrDNA ITS data (ITS1, 5.8S rDNA, ITS2) combined with neighbour and ribotype networks...

The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region (ITS1, 5.8S rDNA, ITS2) represents the most widely applied nuclear marker in eukaryotic phylogenetics. Although this region has been assumed to evolve in concert, the number of investigations revealing high degrees of intra-individual polymorphism connected with the presence of pseudogenes has risen. The...

The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region (ITS1, 5.8S rDNA, ITS2) represents one of the most popular molecular markers in phylogenetics. The number of investigations revealing high degrees of intra-individual polymorphism connected with the presence of pseudogenic ITS regions is on the increase. Studies including pseudogenic ITS regions can lead...

The increasing number of pseudogenic internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions (ITS1, 5.8S rDNA, ITS2) reported for plant taxa raises questions - for example, concerning the proportion of functional copies. Our application of quantitative PCR (qPCR) with genomic DNA under stringent conditions revealed that <3% of the copies of the ITS region were p...

Molecular studies of 21 species of the large Cactaceae genus Mammillaria representing a variety of intrageneric taxonomic levels revealed a high degree of intra-individual polymorphism of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS1, 5.8S rDNA, ITS2). Only a few of these ITS copies belong to apparently functional genes, whereas most are probably no...