Sinocurculigo, a New Genus of Hypoxidaceae from China Based on Molecular and Morphological Evidence

BACKGROUND: The monocot family Hypoxidaceae consists of nine genera with nearly 200 species. They occur mostly in the Southern Hemisphere with only a few species in the Northern Hemisphere, of which three genera, Hypoxis, Molineria, and Curculigo, with eight species are distributed in China. Recently, we have found a hypoxid-like plant in China that is quite different in floral structure from any of the three genera and even of the known taxa in Hypoxidaceae. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In addition to morphological analysis, we performed maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference analyses based on fragments of the chloroplast matK and rbcL genes of 60 taxa in 12 families representing all major clades of the Hypoxidaceae alliance. Results showed that Hypoxidaceae is monophyletic and and that the new plant belongs to it, forming a distinct clade within the family Hypoxidaceae as a sister of Molineria. Phylogeny of the Hypoxidaceae family was constructed based on a combined matrix of the chloroplast rbcL, trnS-G, and trnL-F regions of 59 taxa in Hypoxidaceae and its alliance. Findings of the molecular investigation is consistent with those of the morphological analysis. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Based on the results of our molecular and morphological analyses in the present study, we propose a new genus, Sinocurculigo.