Norbert Kilian

Freie Universität Berlin | FUB · Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum

The Gynoxyoid clade of the Senecioneae (Asteraceae) until now included the five gen-era Aequatorium, Gynoxys, Nordenstamia, Paracalia and Paragynoxys as diagnosed using selected morphological characters. In their pre-phylogenetic circumscription, the genera Aequatorium and Paragynoxys were considered to inhabit the northern Andes in contrast to Nor...

Our first record of the rare and scatteredly distributed Ixeridium sagittarioides for Guizhou, China, triggered a study to assess its systematic position. The species was placed in four different genera in the course of its taxonomic history and was recently treated with doubts as a member of Ixeridium in the Flora of China. Comparative morphologic...

Subtribe Scorzonerinae (Cichorieae, Asteraceae) contains 12 main lineages and approximately 300 species. Relationships within the subtribe, either at inter- or intrageneric levels, were largely unresolved in phylogenetic studies to date, due to the lack of phylogenetic signal provided by traditional Sanger sequencing markers. In this study, we empl...

A new genus, Caucasoseris, is established to accommodate Prenanthes abietina, a species of hitherto uncertain systematic position distributed in the western Caucasus and northeasternmost Turkey in montane conifer and mixed forests. Agreement has existed that the species belongs somewhere in the Crepidinae or Lactucinae but its morphological feature...

With the increasing amount of interdisciplinary and international networks dedicated to long-term persistence and interoperability of research data, the demand for semantic linking of environmental research data has grown. Data related to organisms frequently inherit a major obstacle. Organisms often are ambiguously identified by using only the sci...

A single small population of chasmophytic plants is described as Mojiangia oreophila, a monotypic genus in the subtribe Crepidinae, characterised by a unique combination of morphological features, in particular densely long-papillose homomorphic achenes with five main ribs each accompanied by two secondary ribs, coarse brownish pappus bristles, mod...

Launaea calmadowensis from Saanag Region in north Somalia is described as a species new to science and illustrated, based on a single gathering known from a hitherto unidentified part of a collection made by R. Bavazzano & J. J. Lavranos in 1970/71 and preserved at FT Herbarium. It is inferred from the comparison of diagnostic morphological charact...

Euphorbia radfanensis Al-Fatimi & N. Kilian from the Radfan region, Lahji governorate, Yemen, is described as a species new to science. https://www.euphorbia-international.org/journal/about_journal.htm

This study provides the first comprehensive molecular phylogenetic reconstruction of the lettuce alliance (Cichorieae subtribe Lactucinae of the sunflower family) in its SW Asia centre of diversity and assumed area of origin. The sampling contains multiple samples of all SW Asian Lactucinae except four unavailable rare taxa. One nuclear ribosomal a...

Scorzonera comprises 180–190 species and belongs to the subtribe Scorzonerinae. Its circumscription has long been the subject of debate and available molecular phylogenetic analyses affirmed the polyphyly of Scorzonera in its wide sense. We provide a re-evaluation of Scorzonera and other related genera, based on carpological (including anatomical)...

Campanula is one of the species-rich genera of the bellflower family (Campanulaceae), in a wider sense with ∼600 species, growing in a wide range of habitats in the northern hemisphere. The Caucasus is one of the areas with especially many endemic Campanula species. The Scapiflorae group comprises alpine and subalpine perennial rocky plants, which...

The EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy was initially developed as part of the EU Network of Excellence project EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy, 2006-2011) aimed at a concertation of different taxonomic computing platforms applied in Europe. For example, it incorporated the ideas about taxon concept handling that were a core feature of...

Premise: Hybrid capture with high-throughput sequencing (Hyb-Seq) is a powerful tool for evolutionary studies. The applicability of an Asteraceae family-specific Hyb-Seq probe set and the outcomes of different phylogenetic analyses are investigated here. Methods: Hyb-Seq data from 112 Asteraceae samples were organized into groups at different ta...

The Reuss herbarium is a collection of c. 60 000 vascular plants of mainly European origin brought together in the mid-nineteenth century and kept in the Botanical Museum Berlin. This herbarium consists of specimens gathered by August Emanuel Reuss and his two sons August Leopold and Wilhelm Joseph and includes ample material purchased from differe...

Herbarium specimens are central to botanical science and of rising importance thanks to increasing accessibility and broadened usability. Alongside the many new uses of specimen data, sit a range of traditional uses supporting the collection of morphological data and their application to taxonomy and systematics. (Henning et al. 2018). Technical wo...

The Platform for Cybertaxonomy (http://www.cybertaxonomy.org) is a standards-based open-source software framework covering the breadth of the taxonomic workflow, from fieldwork to publication (Ciardelli et al. 2009). It provides coupled tools for full, customized access to taxonomic data, editing and management, and collaborative team work. At the...

Herbarium specimens have always played a central role in the classical disciplines of plant sciences and the global digitisation efforts now open new horizons. To make full use of the inherent possibilities of specimen based taxonomic descriptions corresponding workflows are needed. A crucial step in the comparative analyses of organisms is the pre...

Abstract: The Lactuca lineage is one of nine lineages in the lettuce subtribe (Cichorieae, Asteraceae) distributed in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. Within the Lactuca lineage two clades show disjunct Eurasian-North American distributions. One disjunct clade consists of diploids (x = 8) and allotetraploids (x = 17), the former restricted t...

The phylogenetic relationships and phylogeography of two relatively rare Macaronesian Lactuca species, Lactuca watsoniana (Azores) and L. palmensis (Canary Islands), were, until this date, unclear. Karyological information of the Azorean species was also unknown. For this study, a chromosome count was performed and L. watsoniana showed 2n = 34. A p...

Melanoseris jilongensis from SW Xizang, China, is described as a species new to science and illustrated, and its threat status is also assessed. It morphologically resembles M. macrorhiza, but differs in particular in leaf morphology, indumentum and achene characters. Molecular phylogenetic analysis based on nrITS and plastid DNA sequences revealed...

Herbarium specimens have always played a central role in plant sciences and constitute the cornerstone for systematics and taxonomy. This role is further strengthened with the ongoing digitisation and growing online-availability of collections all over the globe. The increasing usability of specimens demands, however, an improved use and sustainabl...

This paper presents new data on the diversity of Lactuca L. in Turkey based on recent collections made during revisional work. Lactuca leucoclada Rech.f. & Tuisl is newly recorded for Turkey, and for Lactuca viminea (L.) J.Presl. & C.Presl. and Lactuca quercina L., the presence of two distinct subspecies each in Turkey, L. viminea subsp. viminea an...

The Gymnosporia dhofarensis complex (Celastraceae) consists of the closely related taxa G. dhofarensis (Sebsebe) Jordaan and G. parviflora (Vahl) Chiov. and occurs in the fragmented and isolated monsoon-affected refugia of the coastal mountains in a vegetation of relics of (semi-)evergreen Afro-montane woodland and drier habitats (deciduous woodlan...

Using the angiosperm order Caryophyllales, we will provide an ex-emplar use case on optimizing the taxonomic research process with respect to delimitation and characterisation ("description") of taxa using the the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT) Platform for Cybertaxonomy. The workflow for sample data handling of the EDIT platform...

Specimens form the falsifiable evidence used in plant systematics. Derivatives of specimens (including the specimen as the organism in the field) such as tissue and DNA samples play an increasing role in research. The EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy is a specialist's tool that allows to document and sustainably store all data that are used in the t...

The taxonomy of Lactuca triquetra, a scoparious subshrub of localized distribution and uncertain generic placement, is assessed. The taxon was described in the early 19th century from Lebanon and more than 100 years later also discovered on Cyprus. Referring to new molecular phylogenetic results published elsewhere, morphological characters, in par...

The Lactucinae or Lactuca alliance include approximately 200 species distributed across the Northern Hemisphere and Africa. They were not recognised as a separate lineage until the late 20th century and their circumscription is still not fully settled. The generic classification of no other group of the Cichorieae has faced as many controversies as...

Comprising more than 25 000 species, the Sunflower Family (Compositae or Asteraceae) is the largest family of flowering plants. Many of its lineages have experienced recent and rapid radiations, and the family has a deep and widespread history of large-scale gene duplications and polyploidy. Many of the most important evolutionary questions about t...

Lactuca pumila, so far known only from a single gathering from E Afghanistan, is shown to occur also in the SE Zagros range, Kerman province, southeastern Iran. The new locality extends the range of the species about 1000 km south-westward and this disjunction further highlights the floristic link between the SE Zagros and the Hindu Kush as well as...

The Socotra archipelago off the Horn of Africa shelters morphologically diverse endemic species of Asteraceae tribe Gnaphalieae, eight species placed in Helichrysum and five newly discovered. We reconstructed their phylogenetic relationships, analysing nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) internal transcribed spacer and external transcribed spacer, three...

Campanula s.l. is one of the most speciose flowering plant lineages of the Holarctic (ca. 600 species). In the present study we sequenced three regions of the plastid genome (petD, rpl16 and trnK/matK) across a broad sample of Campanula s.l., which markedly improved phylogenetic resolution and statistical support compared to previous studies. Based...

Melanoseris henryi (Dunn) N. Kilian (Asteraceae-Cichorieae) is reported for the first time for the Bolaven Plateau of southern Laos (Champasak province). Hitherto this rare species was only known from the type collection made at Pu'er, in southern Yunnan, China, at the end of the 19th century, where it has not been recollected since. This is also t...

Lactuca indica and Lactuca canadensis have been recorded for the first time in the Americas and in South America, respectively. Lactuca indica is native to Eastern Asia, and L. canadensis to North America. In Brazil, L. indica is used as a substitute for lettuce in some communities. The leaf shape in the Brazilian plants of the two species is less...

Hydnora abyssinica A.Br. (Hydnoraceae), a holoparasitic herb, is for the first time recorded for Abyan governorate of South Yemen. Flowers of this species were studied for their ethnobotanical, biological and chemical properties for the first time. In South Yemen, they are traditionally used as wild food and to cure stomach diseases, gastric ulcer...

The use of DNA sequence data in plant systematics has brought us closer than ever to formulating well-founded hypotheses about phylogenetic relationships, and phylogenetic research keeps on revealing that plant genera as traditionally circumscribed often are not monophyletic. Here, we assess the monophyly of genera documented in Rothmaler's "Exkurs...

Hydnora abyssinica A.Br. (Hydnoraceae), a holoparasitic herb, is for the first time recorded for Abyan governorate of South Yemen. Flowers of this species were studied for their ethnobotanical, biological and chemical properties for the first time. In South Yemen, they are traditionally used as wild food and to cure stomach diseases, gastric ulcer...

Unlabelled: We present the model and implementation of a workflow that blazes a trail in systematic biology for the re-usability of character data (data on any kind of characters of pheno- and genotypes of organisms) and their additivity from specimen to taxon level. We take into account that any taxon characterization is based on a limited set of...

The proper documentation of research samples in the biological sciences and their integration as collection items in scientific collections is still a downstream process usually left to the collections and their staff. The subsequent inclusion of samples into collections inevitably favours data- and sample loss and hampers the generally demanded re...

Die Dokumentation von Belegen wird hauptsächlich sammlungsseitig thematisiert, aber viele Sammlungsobjekte sind zunächst Untersuchungsobjekte im Forschungsprozess. Auf der Basis der EDIT Plattform haben wir deshalb eine Lösung entwickelt, die es erleichtern soll, bereits im Forschungsprozess Untersuchungsobjekte in adäquat dokumentierte Sammlungsob...

One of the major goals of systematics is to provide a synthesis of knowledge on the diversity of a group of organisms, such as flowering plants. Biodiversity conservation and management call for rapid and accurate global assessments at the species level. At the same time the rapid development of evolutionary biology with a spectrum of approaches to...

The genus Lactuca L., in its currently accepted circumscription, comprises about 230 species, distributed in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. Lactuca watsoniana Trel. is a very rare, autotetraploid Azorean endemic plant, considered as a priority species for conservation, which occurs in São Miguel, Terceira, Pico and Faial, and is probably e...

Based on detailed study of available specimens and perusal of literature, it is shown that Melanoseris lessertiana or Mulgedium lessertianum is not present in China and corresponding reports in the floristic literature of China actually refer to a species originally described as Mulgedium qinghaicum, and correctly placed as Melanoseris qinghaica, a...

The first comprehensive molecular phylogenetic reconstruction of the Cichorieae subtribe Lactucinae is provided. Sequences for two datasets, one of the nuclear rDNA ITS region, the other of five concatenated non-coding chloroplast DNA markers including the petD region and the psbA-trnH, 5'trnL((UAA))-trnF, rpl32-trnL((UAG)) and trnQ((UUG))-5'rps16...

Monographs are fundamental for progress in systematic botany. They are the vehicles for circumscribing and naming taxa, determining distributions and ecology, assessing relationships for formal classification, and interpreting long-term and short-term dimensions of the evolutionary process. Despite their importance, fewer monographs are now being p...

Monographs are fundamental for progress in systematic botany. They are the vehicles for circumscribing and naming taxa, determining distributions and ecology, assessing relationships for formal classification, and interpreting long–term and short–term dimensions of the evolutionary process. Despite their importance, fewer monographs are now being p...

It is shown that the concept of the Iranian endemic Lactuca polyclada in the sense of both its original author Boissier and its current use actually admixes two entirely different species, as was first noted by Beauverd a hundred years ago but has been neglected by later workers. One is a putative relative of Lactuca rosularis, the other was recogn...

Knowing the age of lineages is key to understanding their biogeographic history. We aimed to provide the best estimate of the age of Cichorieae and its subtribes based on available fossil evidence and DNA sequences and to interpret their biogeography in the light of Earth history. With more than 1,550 species, the chicory tribe (Cichorieae, Asterac...

Available for down loading at: http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/China/mss/volume21/index.htm

Annual to perennial, acaulescent, scapose, or caulescent herbs, more rarely subshrubs, exceptionally scandent vines, latex present. Leaves alternate, frequently rosulate. Capitulum solitary or capitula loosely to more densely aggregated, sometimes forming a secondary capitulum, ligulate, homogamous, with 3–5 to ca. 300 but mostly with a few dozen b...

Helichrysum nicolai from the Cape Verdean island of São Nicolau is described as a species new to science and illustrated. The systematic position in Helichrysum of this acaulescent dwarf rosette shrub with heterogamous capitula, in which the female flowers outnumber the hermaphrodite ones, is established using an ITS phylogeny based on maximum pars...

Three species of Dicoma and one of the newly re-established segregate genus Macledium (Dicomeae) are recognized on the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra. The (sub)shrubby Dicoma chatanensis N. Kilian sp. nov. with affinities especially to D. aethiopica from southwest Ethiopia, is described from open habitats of the sea-facing escarpments of Jabal Chata...

Continuing a series of miscellaneous contributions by various authors, the sixth instalment includes information about 126 taxa focussing on the chorology and ecology of the Cyprus flora. One taxon is new to science, Lythrum hyssopifolia var. cyprium, 16 taxa are new to the island, e.g., Campanula fastigiata, Ferula tingitana, Lactuca undulata, Min...

Anogeissus dhofarica (Combretaceae) is an endemic tree of the monsoon affected coastal mountains of the southern Arabian Peninsula, being the character species of the Hybantho durae–Anogeissetum dhofaricae association, a drought deciduous, monsoon forest community found only in the Dhofar region of southern Oman and the eastern Al-Mahra region of s...

The phylogenetic relationship of Dianthoseris is reconstructed with Maximum Parsimony and Bayesian Inference based on both nrDNA ITS and cpDNA matK datasets. The analyses revealed that the East African afro-alpine D. schimperi is deeply nested within Crepis s.str., forming a clade with the more widespread afro-alpine C. newii. This clade is sister-...

Euclea schimperi, a widespread Afromontane shrub or tree, occurs in the Arabian Peninsula in fragmented, semi-evergreen or evergreen woodland refugia in wet escarpment localities of the western and southern mountain chains. In the southern coastal mountains, the (semi-) evergreen woodland with E. schimperi is close to its ecological limit and conse...

The crisis facing the conservation of biodiversity is reflected in a parallel crisis in alpha taxonomy. On one hand, there is an acute need from government and non-government organisations for large-scale and relatively stable species inventories on which to build major biodiversity information systems. On the other, molecular information will have...

The Tarchonantho camphoratae-Oleetum cuspidatae, an evergreen, sclerophyllous woodland community is described from W, SW and S Arabia as a new association. It is characterized by the Afromontane species Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata and Tarchonanthus camphoratus and can be classified in the here validated Pistacio-Eucleetalia schimperi of the Hype...

Kilian, N. & Gemeinholzer, B.: Studies in the Compositae of the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra - 7. Erythroseris, a new genus and the previously unknown sister group ofCichorium(Cichorieae subtribe Cichoriinae). - Willdenowia 37: 283-296. - ISSN 0511-9618; © 2007 BGBM Berlin-Dahlem. doi:10.3372/wi.37.37117 (available via http://dx.doi.org/) Two spec...

We investigated the colonization of the Indian Ocean archipelago of Socotra through phylogenetic analysis of Aerva (Amaranthaceae) based on nuclear and plastid DNA sequence data. The biogeographic history of the genus was tracked using ancestral area reconstructions and molecular dating. Three independent colonization lineages from the Eritreo-Arab...

Kilian, N., Kürschner, H. & Hein, P.: Euphorbia greuteri (Euphorbiaceae), a new single-spined succulent from the foothills of Jabal Urays, Abyan, Yemen. — Willdenowia 36 (Special Issue): 441–446. — ISSN 0511-9618; © 2006 BGBM Berlin-Dahlem. doi:10.3372/wi.36.36141 (available via http://dx.doi.org/) A dwarf pulvinate succulent perennial of the group...