Journal of Threatened
Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 July 2024 | 16(7): 25632–25636
ISSN 0974-7907
(Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8906.16.7.25632-25636
#8906 | Received 08 January 2024 | Final received 02 June 2024 | Finally
accepted 28 June 2024
Medicago monantha (Fabaceae) and Euphorbia jodhpurensis (Euphorbiaceae)
as new additions to the flora of Maharashtra State, India
Praveen V. Kale 1 & Rajendra D. Shinde 2
1,2 Department of Botany, St.
Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai, 5, Mahapalika
Marg, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001, India.
1 praveen.kale@xaviers.edu
(corresponding author), 2 rajendra.shinde@xaviers.edu
Editor: V. Sampath Kumar, Botanical Survey of India,
Coimbatore, India. Date of publication: 26 July 2024
(online & print)
Citation: Kale,
P.V. & R.D. Shinde (2024). Medicago monantha
(Fabaceae) and Euphorbia jodhpurensis (Euphorbiaceae) as new additions to the flora of Maharashtra
State, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 16(7): 25632–25636. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8906.16.7.25632-25636
Copyright: © Kale & Shinde 2024. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License. JoTT
allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any
medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of
publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: The authors are thankful to the Management of St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai for supporting the present research
work. Authors express their gratitude to Mr. Anand R. Chordia, Director,
Technology & Innovations, Pravin Masalewale, and Founder, The Eco Factory Foundation, Pune, Maharashtra, India for
permitting us to carry out our botanical survey in their factory
premises located at the village Yawat, Taluka Daund, District Pune, Maharashtra. The authors are also grateful to the
Directors at the Blatter Herbarium (BLAT), Botanical Survey of India, Arid Zone Circle (BSJO), Central National Herbarium (CAL), and the
Komarov Botanical Institute of RAS (LE)
for providing high-resolution digital images important to comparing and
confirming the identity of the specimens reported herein.
Abbreviations: BLAT—Blatter Herbarium, St.
Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001 | BSJO—Botanical
Survey of India, Arid Zone Circle, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India | CAL—Botanical
Survey of India, Central National Herbarium, Howrah, West Bengal, India |
LE—The Komarov Botanical Institute of RAS, Saint
Petersburg, Russia.
During the recent (2019–2022)
botanical survey of Daund Tehsil in Pune District of
Maharashtra State, two plant specimens belonging to the genera Medicago L.
and Euphorbia L. were collected. On the thorough scrutiny of the
literature (Bentham 1839; Trautvetter 1840; Baker
1879; Hooker 1890; Blatter & Hallberg 1920; Ali 1977; Purohit et al.
2019), they have been identified as Medicago monantha
(C.A. Mey.) Trautv.
(1840, Fabaceae) and Euphorbia jodhpurensis Blatt.
& Hallb. (1920, Euphorbiaceae),
which were hitherto not reported from the Maharashtra State. The herbarium
specimens (Image 1B & 1C) of the plant species reported herein are
deposited at the Blatter Herbarium (BLAT), St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous),
Mumbai. The detailed descriptions, distribution, and photographs of both species are
provided herein for their easy identification.
Systematic treatment
Fabaceae
Medicago monantha
(C.A. Mey.) Trautv., Index Seminum [Kiev] 1840: vi, adnot.
No. 4. 1840; Mishra et al., Indian J. Plant Sci. 4(3): 70. 2015; Mishra et al.,
Int. J. Herb. Med. 3(4): 11. 2015; Mishra et al., Indian J. Plant Sci. 4 (4):
92. 2015; Pandey et al., J. Med. Plants Stud. 5(5): 53. 2017; Kaur et al., J.
Threat. Taxa 9(8): 10556. 2017; Sanjappa & Ambrish in Dar & Khuroo, Biodivers. Himal.: Jammu &
Kashmir State: 640. 2020; Sharma, Int. J. Innov. Res.
Sci. Eng. 11(5): 6098. 2022; Sharma, Int. J. Innov.
Res. Sci. Eng. 11(7): 9623. 2022; Choudhary et al., Int. Res. J. Modern. Eng.
Technol. Sci. 5(8): 565–569. 2023. Trigonella
monantha C.A. Mey., Verz. Pfl. Casp.
Meer.: 137. 1831. Trigonella polyceratia auct. non. L.
(1753): Baker in Hook. f., Fl. Brit. India 2: 87. 1879; Duthie, Fl. Gangetic
Plain 1(1): 209. 1903; Bamber, Pl. Punjab.: 554. 1916; Babu,
Herb. Fl. Dehradun: 168. 1977; Sharma & Dhakre,
Fl. Agra Distr.: 96. 1995. Trigonella incisa Royle ex Benth., Ill. Bot. Himal. Mts.:
197. 1839; Aitchison, Cat. Pl. Punjab and Sindh: 38. 1869; Maheshwari, Fl.
Delhi: 115. 1963; Nair, Rec. Bot. Surv. India 12(1):
101. 1978; Sanjappa, Legumes of India: 265. 1992; Bhellum & Magotra, J. Plant
Biol. Res. 1(2): 7. 2012. T. monantha ssp. incisa (Benth.) Ali in
Nasir & Ali, Fl. W. Pakistan, Papilionaceae 100:
294. 1977; Singh in Shetty & Singh, Fl. Rajasthan 1: 269. 1987. (Image
2H–J).
Annual, silvery-puberulous herb with prostrate to ascending slender stem.
Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate, strongly nerved; petioles 1–1.5 cm long; leaflets
5–10 × 3–7 mm, obovate-oblong, retuse at apex,
cuneate at base, toothed mainly in upper part, sub-glabrous above, sparsely
silvery-puberulous beneath; lateral nerves 5–8,
conspicuous; petiolules of lateral leaflets are very
short, those of terminal leaflets 1–1.5 cm long. Stipules are linear-subulate, puberulous, 3–6mm long, single-nerved. Inflorescence
axillary, sessile or pedunculate, 1–3-flowered in axillary sub-umbellate
clusters; peduncles 0.5–1.5 cm long, puberulous;
bracts linear-subulate, puberulous, 1–2 mm long;
pedicels less than 1mm long. Calyx campanulate, linear-lanceolate, very acute,
3–5 mm long, puberulous outside; teeth 5, sub-equal.
Corolla yellow; standard 5–7 × 2–2.5 mm, obovate, narrow towards base, retuse; wings 3.5–4 × 1 mm, oblong-obovate, obtuse,
claw 2.0–2.3 mm long, upper auricle 0.5–1 mm long; keels 3.5–4 × 1 mm,
oblong-obovate, slightly curved towards apex, rounded, claw 2 mm long, flat,
upper auricle minute. Stamens glabrous; vexillary filaments 2.3–3 mm long,
flat; staminal sheath 2.5–4 mm long; free filaments 0.5–0.7 mm long, sub-equal;
anthers minute. Ovary 2.7–3.3 × 0.5 mm, narrowly oblong, ovules many,
very minute hairs present along dorsal side when young, densely sericeous at
maturity; style 0.5 mm long, subulate, flat, curved, glabrous, persistent;
stigma capitate, glabrous. Pods greyish-green, 2.7–5.5 × 0.1–0.2 cm,
linear-cylindrical, somewhat compressed, straight or slightly falcate,
apiculate, reticulately veined, 12–15-seeded; seeds brownish-green.
Flowering & Fruiting:
March–May.
Habitat & associates: In the
garden premises of Pravin Masalewale (Suhana Masala) factory unit located along the Pune–Solapur
Highway Road, found growing as a weed together with Medicago polymorpha L., Solanum nigrum L., Dactyloctenium
aegyptium (L.) Willd., Eragrostis tenella
(L.) P. Beauv. ex Roem.
& Schult. and Setaria
verticillata (L.) P. Beauv.
Distribution in India:
So far has been reported from
Delhi, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. The present collection from Yawat village, Daund tehsil, Pune district, Maharashtra State, India (Image 1A), forms its first report
for the State.
Specimens examined:
Maharashtra, Suhana Masale Factory Premises, Yawat, Daund tehsil,
Pune district, 18.469 0N, & 74.294 0E,
17.iii.2019, coll. P. V. Kale,
P.V.K./Daund/17/03/2019/2 (BLAT Accession
number 114280).
Euphorbiaceae
Euphorbia jodhpurensis
Blatt. & Hallb., J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc.
26(4): 971. 1920; Bhandari, Fl. Ind.
Desert: 342. 1978; Parmar in Shetty
& Singh, Fl. Rajasthan 2: 781. 1991; Binojkumar & Balakrishnan in Balakrishnan et al., Fl. of India 23: 291. 2012; Purohit et al., Euphorbia World 15(3): 18–22. 2019; Kotiya et al., Fl. Rajasthan:
441. 2020. Euphorbia clarkeana var. erecta Hook.f., Fl. Brit. India 5: 254.
1890. Chamaesyce jodhpurensis
(Blatt. & Hallb.) Raju
& Rao, Phytologia 40(5): 392. 1978. (Image 2A–G).
Annual, about
15–60 cm high, glabrous, filiform;
stem straw-coloured, erect, simple, or branched from base.
Leaves opposite, 12–15 ×
3–4.5 mm, obliquely linear-oblong,
base almost auricled on one side, margins usually
spinulose-serrate, apex obtuse or sub-acute,
coriaceous, often crowded at end of branchlets; petioles very short. Stipules
lacerate. Cyathia solitary, axillary, less than 1 mm long, campanulate, glabrous; involucral lobes 5, lanceolate, triangular, toothed; glands 4, minute, rounded with pinkish-white
orbicular appendages. Male flowers 3–4, pedicels ca 0.5 mm long; anthers sub-globose, transversely dehiscing. Female flower solitary,
pedicels ca 1 mm long, glabrous; ovary sub-globose, ca 1 mm across; style 3, ca 1.2 mm long, free from base,
each bifurcated up to base;
stigma capitate. Capsules yellowish-green with a reddish tinge, sub-globose 1.5–1.7 mm in diam., glabrous, obtusely keeled, cocci somewhat cornet; seeds rose-brownish, 1–2 mm long, 4-angled, attenuated and obtuse at apex, distinctly transversely rugose, delicately foveolate.
Flowering & Fruiting:
September–December.
Habitat & associates:
In sandy soils near the Kurkumbh
M.I.D.C. along the Pune–Solapur Highway Road, found growing together with Euphorbia hirta L., Tridax procumbens
L., and Alternanthera
pulchella Kunth.
Distribution in India:
The present collection of specimens of
E. jodhpurensis collected
from Kurkumbh village, Daund Tehsil, Pune District, Maharashtra State, India (Image
1A) forms its extended distribution to Maharashtra State from Rajasthan.
Specimens examined:
Maharashtra, Along Pune–Solapur Highway opposite to Kurkumbh M.I.D.C, Kurkumbh, Daund Tehsil, Pune District, 18.395 0N
& 74.525 0E, 17. ix.2022, coll. P. V. Kale, P.V.K./Daund/17/09/2022/1
(BLAT Accession number
114283).
IUCN Red List
status: Purohit & Kulloli (2022) listed Euphorbia
jodhpurensis as ‘Endangered’ under criteria B2ab(iii), D.
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References
Ali, S.I.
(1977). Trigonella monantha subsp. incisa (Benth.) Ali, p.
294. In: Nasir, E. & S.I. Ali (eds.). Flora of West Pakistan, Vol. 100 (Papilionaceae).
Department of Botany,
University of Karachi, Karachi, 389 pp.
Baker, J.G.
(1879). Genus Medicago, pp. 89–91. In: Hooker, J.D. (ed.).
Flora of British India
Vol. 2 (Sabiaceae to Cornaceae). L. Reeve & Co., London, 792 pp.
Bentham, G.
(1839). Himalayan Leguminosae of European and Siberian Forms, pp. 197–201. In: Royle,
J.F. (ed.). Illustrations
of the Botany
and other branches of Natural History of the
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Cashmere. Vol. 1. WM. H. Allen & Co., London,
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Blatter, E.
& F. Hallberg (1920). The Flora of
the Indian Desert. (Jodhpur
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Hooker, J.D.
(1890). Flora of British India Vol. 5 (Chenopodiaceae
to Orchideae). L.
Reeve & Co., London, 910 pp.
Purohit, C.S., R. Kulloli
& A. Bharti (2019). Euphorbia jodhpurensis Blatt. & Hallb.,
An endemic plant from the Indian desert and its range
extension from Todgarh-Raoli Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan. Euphorbia
World 15(3): 18–22.
Purohit, C.S. & R.N. Kulloli (2022). Euphorbia jodhpurensis.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T177962845A177969097.
Accessed on 18 November 2023. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-2.RLTS.T177962845A177969097.en
Trautvetter, E.R. von (1840). Medicago monantha (C.A. Mey.) Trautv.
Delectus seminum
in horto botanico Kioviensi Universitatis Caesareae St. Vladimiri anno 1840
collectorum: vi, adnot.
no. 4.