Typha orientalis Presl ( Typhaceae ) : a new species record for India

Typha orientalis C. Presl (Typhaceae) is recorded for the first time from the Kashmir Himalaya, India.and for the first time in the entire Indian sub-continent. A detailed taxonomic description and photographs of the diagnostic characters are provided to facilitate its identification in the field. Also provided are diagnostic characters used to distinguish T. orientalis C. Presl from T. latifolia L.

Typha L. (Typhaceae), or cattails, includes 10 to 15 species and comprises highly productive aquatic weeds (Boyd 1971) and rapid colonizers of disturbed or newly formed wetlands (Steinbachova-Vojtiskova et al. 2006).The genus is widely distributed in temperate and tropical regions of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, existing on all continents except Antarctica (Smith 1987;Kim 2002).
The study site was in the Kashmir Valley, situated in northern fringe of the Indian sub-continent between 33°22′ N and 34°50′ N and 073°55′ E and 073°33′ E (Figure 1), covering an area of ca.16,000 km 2 .Standard herbarium methods were followed (Ganie et al. 2014).several regional revisions have tried to establish taxonomic boundaries between taxa based on morphological traits (Saha 1968;Cook 1980;Sharma and Gopal 1980;Bokhari 1983;Finlayson et al. 1985;Kuehn and White 1999;Hamdi andAssadi 2003, Kim et al. 2003).Other revisions have focused on particular species complexes (Kuehn et al. 1999) or correct taxonomic identification of various species of the genus (Sharma and Gopal 1980).
Morphologically, Typha orientalis appears similar to T. latifolia because the male and female parts of the inflorescence in both the species are not separated; both species are ebracteolate.Based on the distinguishing characters of the two species (Table 1), both T. orientalis and T. latifolia occur in Kashmir Himalaya.
In Kashmir Himalaya, the bewildering taxonomy of the genus Typha may be resolved in the future by molecular studies.
Flowering period: The species are in full bloom during May-July in different aquatic habitats of Kashmir Himalaya.
Fruiting period: It was observed that the species produce fruits during September to October The taxonomy and systematics of Typha is unclear and controversial.This is due to species having very similar gross morphology and a large range of variability in vegetative and reproductive traits that are used to delimit taxa (Smith 1967).Since the early systematic treatment of Kronfeld (1889),

Table 1 .
Morphological comparison between Typha orientalis and T. latifolia.

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Steinbachova-Vojtiskova, L., E. Tylova, A. Soukup, H. Novicka,  O. Votrubova, H. Lipavska and H. Cizkova.2006.Influence of nutrient supply on growth, carbohydrate, and nitrogen metabolic relations in Typha angustifolia.Environmental and Experimental Botany 57: 246-257.Stewart, R.R. 1972.An annotated catalogue of the vascular plants of West Pakistan and Kashmir.Karachi: Fakhri Printing Press.xviii + 1028 pp.AHG, ARD and MA has collected the plant material, the analysis of data were carried out in the laboratory by AHG, ARD, MA and ZAR.AHG, ARD and ZAR wrote the manuscript.