A new species of Veronicastrum wulingense G.W. Hu & Q.F. Wang was recently published by the Research Group of Flora and Plant Taxonomy in Eastern Africa from Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Pingbaying National Forest Park, southwest Hubei Province. The new species is the first identified and named by the research team, and the only new species of this genus published in Chinese mainland in the past four decades.

Veronicastrum Heist. ex Fabr. is a perennial herb genus in the tribe Veroniceae in Plantaginaceae, with about 20 species, which are mainly distributed in East Asia except for one species discontinuously distributed in eastern North America. 13 Veronicastrum species are original distribution records in China, and most of them are Chinese endemic species. This genus of species is important medicinal resource and the whole plant can be used as medicine, rich in a variety of active medicinal ingredients, which has the curative effect in antioxidant, antisepsis, anti-inflammation, cancer prevention, especially effective in the treatment of ascites caused by schistosoma. Veronicastrum species are also excellent ornamental garden resources, which can be cultivated as understory ground cover or flower bed landscape.

In June 2021, HU's research team was invited to investigate plant resources in Pingbaying National Forest Park, Xianfeng County, Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, southwest Hubei Province. They found several clusters of distinctively morphological Veronicastrum individuals, with plants procumbent and arching on the humus of the stone wall along the plank road above the karst cave in the scenic spot of Sidong Canyon. The whole plant also presented purplish-red when young and the small purplish-red flowers were densely clustered at the tip of the inflorescence axis 2-3 cm. This unknown Veronicastrum species attracted the interest of HU's research team, so they collected a few of living materials for further study.

Through in-depth morphological and molecular systematic studies on the genus of Veronicastrum, this population was verified as a new taxon of Veronicastrum species that had not been reported in previous literatures. It was named "Veronicastrum wulingense" based on its type location in Wulingshan Region of western Hubei.

It is similar in morphology to Veronicastrum liukiuense from the Ryukyu Islands, but can be distinctly differed by its axillary inflorescences (versus terminal on short leafy branches), pedicels up to 2.5 mm (versus sessile), corollas purple to purple-red (versus white tinged with pale purple), florescence June to July (versus September to October) and distributed in the limestone mountain at an elevation of 1000-1400 m (versus low elevation island). Also, these diagnostic characteristics of peduncles up to 7 cm, flowers clustered densely in rachis apex and steadily ca. 2-3 cm long, which are unique in the all known Veronicastrum species of axillary inflorescences. Molecular phylogenetic studies show that the new species is an independent clade of the phylogenetic tree.

The discovery of this new species not only reflects the diverse habitat and high species diversity in Wulingshan Region of western Hubei, but also has great significance for the further study of the speciation, evolution and biogeography of Veronicastrum species in East Asia.

Noteworthily, only two wild populations with a few individuals of V. wulingense have been found after the continuous investigation in the surrounding of the distribution area. One is distributed on the side of plank road in the Sidong Canyon, and the other is in the mountain near the village in Bajiao Township, which exists a situation of wild resources digging and sale. It is urgent for the relevant departments to strengthen its protection of the wild resources and population propagation rescue.

Results entitled “Veronicastrum wulingense (Plantaginaceae), a new species from Southwestern Hubei, China" were published in the international botanical journal of Botanical Studies. PhD student DING Shixiong from Wuhan Botanical Garden is the first author of the paper, and the professor HU Guangwan is the corresponding author, and other students in the research group have also participated in this work.

The morphological characteristics of Veronicastrum wulingense (Image by WBG)

The phylogenetic position of V. wulingense in the genus Veronicastrum based on the maximum likelihood (ML) method using 30 concatenated matrix sequences from ITS (internal transcribed spacer) and plastid fragment trnL-F (Image by WBG)

The phylogenetic position of V. wulingense in the genus Veronicastrum based on ML method using 26 concatenated matrix sequences from three plastid molecular markers (Image by WBG)