The Chinese Parrotia: A Sibling Species of the Persian Parrotia Jianhua Li and Peter Del Tredici he Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica) The Persian and Chinese ironwoods are has a well-deserved reputation as a beau- members of the witch hazel family (Hama- Ttiful garden plant—mainly because of its melidaceae), and in order to appreciate their exfoliating bark and gorgeous fall color—but uniqueness and evolutionary history we need also as a tough species that tolerates drought, to first examine one of their more familiar rela- heat, wind, and cold (Dirr 1998). Less well tives, the witch hazels (Hamamelis). There are known is the fact that Persian ironwood has five species of witch hazel distributed through- a sister species, the Chinese ironwood (Parro- out the temperate regions: H. mollis in eastern tia subaequalis) (Figure 1), growing about 5600 China, H. japonica in Japan, and H. virginiana, kilometers (3500 miles) away in eastern China. H. vernalis, H. mexicana in North America. Remarkably, this species was correctly identi- The genus shows the intercontinental disjunct fied only sixteen years ago (Deng et al. 1992a). distribution between eastern Asia and North Figure 1. Geographic distribution of Parrotia persica (in green) and P. subaequalis (in red). Note that the scale bar is 400 kilometers. Parrotia 3 Hamamelis virginiana ..... Distyliopsis tutcheri 55 84 Distylium racemosum UBC Botanical Garden Sycopsis sinensis ................... 100 ➙ MOBOT Parrotia persica ........... 91 7.8±3.8 mya Parrotia subaequalis ................................. 50 mya Parrotiopsis jacquemontana ......... Fothergilla major .... 10 changes Figure 2. Evolutionary relationships of Hamamelis and petalless genera, showing shift (the arrow) from insect to wind pollination. Black dot indicates the fossil calibration point and the red dot shows the divergence time of the two Parrotia species. The scale bar represents ten changes in nucleotide composition as measured along the horizontal branches of this phylogenetic tree. Changes in nucleotide composition indicate genetic evolution over time. The numbers that appear over several of the branches indicate the percentages of statistical support for those group- ings. Higher numbers indicate stronger evidence of support. (mya=million years ago) America that has fascinated many scientists genera have traditionally been considered since the time of Asa Gray (Gray 1846). closely related to one another and to Hama- Witch hazels have four ribbonlike petals melis because they have the same number of (Figure 2) that come in a variety of colors from similarly shaped petals. yellow to reddish copper. Six other genera in But recent DNA analysis has determined that the witch hazel family have similar ribbon- the genera with four ribbonlike petals do not like petals and occur in Southeast Asia, Africa, form a closely related natural group because Madagascar, and northeastern Australia. These they are positioned on different branches in the 4 Arnoldia 66/1 the only known species in the genus. In 1960 Professor H. T. Chang of Sun Yat-sen Univer- P. DEL TREDICI P. sity described a new species of Hamamelis—H. subaequalis— based on a fruiting specimen that had been collected twenty- five years earlier from Yixing county of Jiangsu province, China. Its main distinguishing feature was that it produced much smaller leaves than the Chinese witch hazel (H. mol- lis) (Figure 3) (Chang 1960). The fact that the plant described as H. subaequalis was not re- collected until 1988—some 53 years after its initial collec- tion—led to speculation that Figure 3. The foliage of a specimen of Parrotia subaequalis growing at the Nanjing Botanical Garden. the plant had gone extinct in the intervening years. witch hazel family tree. Interestingly, in each In the fall of 1988, Miaobin Deng and col- branch of this family tree the most advanced leagues at Jiangsu Institute of Botany dis- genera are those that have lost their petals, a covered a natural fruiting population of H. trait that is generally believed to correlate with subaequalis in the town of Yixing. After three the transition from insect to wind pollination years of continually monitoring the population, (Li et al. 1999). During this evolutionary transi- their patience was rewarded when the plants tion period, a few genera in the Hamamelis— finally flowered again (Deng et al. 1992b). At Parrotia lineage developed showy parts other that point it became clear that H. subaequalis than petals with which to attract insect pol- lacked petals, making it dramatically different linators. For example, Parrotiopsis of the west- from H. mollis (Figure 4). They proposed a new ern Himalayas possesses showy leaflike bracts genus—Shaniodendron—to accommodate the beneath the inflorescences, while Fothergilla species which they named S. subaequale (Deng species in the eastern U.S. have conspicuous et al. 1992a). Dr. Riming Hao, who studied the white stamen filaments (Figure 2). In contrast, floral morphology of Shaniodendron, pointed Parrotia flowers lack not only petals but also out that Shaniodendron subaequale was quite showy bracts and stamen filaments. Instead, similar to Parrotia persica, but he did not place their anthers are elongated, a characteristic it within the genus Parrotia (Hao et al. 1996). In common to wind-pollinated species including 1996, Dr. Yinlong Qiu sent some DNA of Sha- the most advanced genera in Hamamelidaceae. niodendron to Jianhua Li, then a PhD candidate Thus, the shift from insect to wind pollination at the University of New Hampshire working is complete in the evolutionary branch leading on the systematics of the witch hazel family. to Parrotia, Sycopsis, Distyliopsis, and Disty- He obtained nuclear DNA sequence data from lium (Figure 2). the sample and, after comparing it with other genera of the family, determined that Sha- Taxonomic History of the Chinese Parrotia niodendron was a sibling species to Parrotia The first recorded species of Parrotia—P. persica (Li et al. 1997). After seeing the DNA persica—was described by C. A. Meyer in 1831 results, Hao used this evidence to propose the and named in honor of F. W. Parrot, a German merger of Shaniodendron with Parrotia (Hao naturalist and traveler. For a long time it was and Wei 1998). Nevertheless, it seems that this Parrotia 5 for a specific taxon. Nevertheless, if DNA mol- JIANHUA LI ecules evolve at a constant rate, that is, a cer- tain number of nucleotide changes per million years, we can use the total number of changes between the two species to estimate how long ago they diverged. Our statistical tests indicated that the evolution of the nuclear genes we have used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of these genera followed a clockwise manner. The next thing we needed was to calibrate the ticking rate of the molecular clock using one or more known fossil dates. Luckily, Radtke et al. Figure 4. The flowers of Parrotia subaequalis as shown on (2005) found a fossil leaf that could be unequiv- a sign posted at the Yixing Caves Scenic Area. ocally assigned to Fothergilla, specifically F. malloryi. This fossil leaf is part of the Republic treatment may take some time for people to Flora of northeastern Washington State, dating accept since recent studies continue to use the to the late Eocene (about 50 million years ago), name Shaniodendron subaequale (Fang et al. and thus provides a minimum separation age 2004; Huang et al. 2005), despite the fact that of Fothergilla from the branch leading to other the plant is listed as Parrotia subaequalis in the genera (Figure 2). Based on the molecular clock Flora of China. calibrated using the fossil, our estimates suggest Parrotia persica and P. subaequalis are very that the two species of Parrotia diverged around similar from growth habit to morphology. Both 7.5 million (plus or minus 3.8 million) years trees display exfoliating bark, have obovate ago, during the Lower Miocene. This divergence leaves with bluntly toothed margins, and grow time is consistent with the geological evidence in moist habitats along streams. They bear four to seven flowers clustered in a head inflores- cence subtended by broadly ovate, brownish bracts. Each flower has five sepals but no petals JIANHUA LI and four to fifteen stamens with long anthers (Figure 4). Their fruits are woody capsules con- sisting of two chambers, each with two brown seeds (Figure 5). Parrotia subaequalis can be easily distinguished from P. persica by its lan- ceolate stipules and sepals fused into a shallow saucer-shaped calyx (Hao et al. 1996). When did Parrotia persica and P. subaequalis diverge? Recent DNA work in Jianhua Li’s laboratory has shown that witch hazels (Hamamelis) are more primitive than the petalless genera in Hamame- lidaceae. The evolutionary sequence of the pet- alless genera appears in the order of Fothergilla, Parrotiopsis, Parrotia, Sycopsis, and Distyliopsis plus Distylium, and the two species of Parrotia are grouped together (Figure 2). Fossils can provide evidence for the minimum age of the lineage to which they belong. Unfor- tunately, fossil information is often unavailable Figure 5. Fruit and seed of Parrotia subaequalis. 6 Arnoldia 66/1 production, serious habitat competition from P. DEL TREDICI P. bamboos, and increasing human activities. It is essential to take immediate action and institute stricter measures to protect the species. Peter Del Tredici first saw two plants of Par- rotia subaequalis on October 8, 1994. They were being cultivated in containers as penjing (bonsai) in a lath-house at the Nanjing Botani- cal Garden. At that time, the foliage had turned a beautiful, rich, deep red (Figure 6). Accord- ing to the Director of the Garden, Professor Shan-an He, the plants had been collected in Figure 6. Parrotia subaequalis cultivated as penjing at the Nan- Jiangsu province at the Yixing Caves Scenic jing Botanical Garden. Area, which is located about 120 kilometers (75 that the cooling temperature in the Lower Mio- cene plus the uplifting of the Himalayas and the mountains of western China from 55 mil- lion years ago to the Middle Miocene may have DEL TREDICI P.