"New" succulent genera from Patagonia

[Colin Walker]

Well guys, I don't know if anyone else went to Patagonia last night? So, this was a CSSA presentation by Argentinian biologist Marcela Ferreyra entitled "Plants in Arid Patagonia". 'twas very informative and we were shown loads of, to me at least, very unfamiliar plants, many of course non-succulent but hey, I'm broad minded.

Turns out that the region of Patagonia is home to 2,500 plant spp. out of the total of 11,000 spp. in Argentina as a whole. The region is topographically very diverse ranging from the Andes in west to the arid Monte in the east.

The following three succulents were completely new to me :

Duseniella patagonica (Asteraceae, monotypic genus)
Adesmia salicornioides (Fabaceae; diverse genus)
Junellia succulentifolia (Verbenaceae)

The last species is from a family that till now hadn't included recognised succulents, at least as far as The Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants ed. 1 is concerned. Whether or not it'll appear in the 2nd ed. currently in preparation and publication is unknown to me since this isn't my call. However, IHOSP has a very broad concept of what constitutes a succulent, so these three spp. really ought to be included as "new".

So, anyone else ever heard of these 3 spp. before?

[edds]

Nope! Grown a Patagonian Geranium species in the past, Geranium sessiliflorum. It has a form with dark leaves ('Nigricans') that has been used as a parent of most of the dark leaved sprawling hybrids for sale at most garden centres.

Always lots of species and genera I've never heard of from that part of the world. The Moschopsis rosulata in these pictures looks really interesting and fairly succulent too!
https://photos.v-d-brink.eu/Flora-and-F ... Patagonia/

[Pattock]

Bit of an oversight as all those three species were described 120 years ago or more.

Did they include cabbage and celery in The Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants?

[ralphrmartin]

Apparently, the last of these is actually offered for sale by Aberconway Nursery, not a million miles from here.