Vol. 80 No. 2 Suppl. (2025)
Articles

A taxonomic revision of the “Quadrispina clade” of Barleria sect. Prionitis

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  • Ellie Defty,
  • Sebastian Hatt,
  • Mats Thulin,
  • Hanny Lidetu,
  • Iain Darbyshire
Ellie Defty
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3AE, U.K.
Sebastian Hatt
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3AE, U.K.
Mats Thulin
Systematic Biology, Department of Organismal Biology, EBC, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
Hanny Lidetu
Department of Plant Biology & Biodiversity Management, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 3434, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Iain Darbyshire
Honorary Senior Researcher, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Private Bag 3, WITS 2050, South Africa
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/jopt-19147

Published 2025-11-17

Keywords

  • Ethiopia,
  • extinction risk,
  • hotspot,
  • Kenya,
  • phytogeography,
  • Somalia,
  • subsection,
  • taxonomy
    • ...More
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How to Cite

Defty, E., Hatt, S., Thulin, M., Lidetu, H., & Darbyshire, I. (2025). A taxonomic revision of the “Quadrispina clade” of Barleria sect. Prionitis. Webbia, 80(2), 93–120. https://doi.org/10.36253/jopt-19147

Copyright (c) 2025 Ellie Defty, Sebastian Hatt, Mats Thulin, Hanny Lidetu, Iain Darbyshire

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The recently recognised Quadrispina clade within Barleria sect. Prionitis Nees (Acanthaceae) represents a taxonomically challenging group endemic to the Horn of Africa biodiversity hotspot. This study presents a comprehensive taxonomic revision of the complex, driven by morphological assessment and morphometric analyses. We recognise seven species in the complex in total, including four new species to science that had previously been included within B. quadrispina, namely B. filtuensis, B. mudugensis, B. puberulifolia and B. sebsebei. In addition, we recognise four subspecies within B. quadrispina, namely subsp. quadrispina, subsp. glaucobracteata, subsp. waggana and the newly described subsp. kenyana. Conservation assessments based on IUCN Red List categories and criteria indicate that B. filtuensis, B. mudugensis, B. puberulifolia, B. sebsebei and B. quadrispina subsp. glaucobraceata are range-restricted and potentially threatened by habitat degradation, hence they are preliminarily assessed as threatened under criterion B, whilst B. quadrispina subsp. kenyana remains Data Deficient.

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