Taiwania 63(2): 163-170, 2018 DOI: 10.6165/tai.2018.63.163 Ceropegia mizoramensis and C. murlensis (Asclepiadaceae) - Two new species from Northeast India with Phylogenetic and morphological evidence support Ramesh KUMAR1,*, Sachin SHARMA2 and Mayank D. DWIVEDI3 1. Botanical Survey of India, Arid Zone Regional Centre, Jodhpur - 342018, India. 2. Botanical Survey of India, Northern Regional Centre, Dehradun - 248001, India. 3. Department of Botany, University of Delhi, Delhi -110007, India. *Corresponding author’s email:
[email protected] (Manuscript received 25 June 2017; accepted 11 May 2018; online published 6 June 2018) ABSTRACT: Based on phylogenetic and morphological evidence, two hitherto unknown species under genus Ceropegia viz. Ceropegia mizoramensis and C. murlensis (Asclepiadaceae) are described here for the first time. The species are collected from Mizoram, Northeast India. The present communication deals with the brief description and photo illustrations of both the species along with key to species found in the region for their easier identification. KEY WORDS: Asclepiadaceae, Ceropegia, India, ITS, Mizoram, New taxa. INTRODUCTION of Ceropegias were collected. The study of the vegetative as well as flowering stages of the collected The genus Ceropegia instated by Linnaeus in 1753 plants revealed two unusual specimens. We compared includes approximately 260 species, distributed in the specimens with morphologically similar Ceropegia South-east Asia, India, Madagascar, Tropical Arabia, oculata and C. dolichophylla and observed a number of Canary Islands, Africa except Mediterranean region, differences (Table 1, 2). New Guinea and Northern Australia (Ansari 1984, Bruyns 1997, 2003, Jagtap and Singh 1999, Mabberly DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction and 1987, Maurya et al.